Some cities grow through continuity, others construct themselves through moments of acceleration. Baku, in Azerbaijan, seems to operate somewhere in between. Its historic core, the Icherisheher, still holds a spatial logic that resists expansion: dense, enclosed, defined by proximity and repetition. But just beyond its walls, the city begins to shift. Scale increases, distances expand, and the relationship between buildings becomes less about continuity and more about visibility.

Over the past two decades, Baku has been the site of a deliberate effort to construct an image of itself. Oil wealth provided the means, but architecture became one of its primary tools. Projects such as the Heydar Aliyev Center by Zaha Hadid Architects or the Flame Towers are symbols of this transformation, their forms designed to circulate as much through media as through the city itself. They are precise, controlled, and highly resolved objects. But they also introduce a different urban logic, one that privileges singularity over continuity and positions architecture as an agent of representation.

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The Aga Khan Award for Architecture has announced the Master Jury for the 16^th award cycle. The independent panel includes Pritzker Prize laureate Yvonne Farrell, ArchDaily founder David Basulto, and Lucia Allais, director of the Buell Center. Established in 1977 by Aga Khan IV, this competition set out to highlight architectural projects that have a significant positive impact on Islamic communities worldwide. The Award is presented in three-year cycles and has a monetary prize totaling US$1 million.

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Videos

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The Aga Khan Award for Architecture (AKAA) has announced its 20 shortlisted projects for the 2022 award cycle. Competing for the US$ 1 million prize, one of the largest rewards in architecture, the 20 architectural developments located in 16 different countries, were selected by a Master Jury from a pool of 463 projects nominated for the 15th Award Cycle (2020-2022). The jury, among which are Anne Lacaton, Francis Kéré, Nader Tehrani, and Amale Andraos, will meet again this summer to examine the on-site reviews and determine the final recipients of the Award.

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On the 13^th of September 2019, the six winning projects of the 2019 Aga Khan Award for Architecture (AKAA) were honored at a ceremony held at the Kazan’s Musa Jalil State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre. After the ceremony, ArchDaily managed to get exclusive comments from all the awarded teams and from the director of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture Farrokh Derakhshani. Read on to discover what they had to say about this cycle of prizes.

The 6 winners of the 2019 Aga Khan Award for Architecture were announced today, by Irada Ayupova, Minister of Culture of the Republic of Tatarstan and Farrokh Derakhshani, Director of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture, at a press conference in Kazan, Republic of Tartarstan.

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Wine production is an industry that combines robust economic activity with an extensive cultural legacy. Although there are several programs related to the wine sector, we commonly find spaces dedicated to the process of fermenting grapes into wine. However, there are a variety of duties grouped around wine production that play an important role in boosting the industry, such as tasting rooms, education centers, sales rooms, or broadcast. Below, a selection of 27 inspiring projects of wine architecture.

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