The Aga Khan Award for Architecture (AKAA)
“Inspiring younger generations to build with environmental care, knowledge and empathy is among the greatest aims of this Award. Architecture today must engage with the climate crisis, enhance education and nourish our shared humanity. Through it, we plant seeds of optimism – quiet acts of resilience that grow into spaces of belonging, where the future may thrive in dignity and hope.”
– His Highness Prince Rahim Aga Khan V, AKAA Steering Committee Chair
The Aga Khan Award for Architecture was established in 1977 by His late Highness Prince Karim Aga Khan IV, to identify and encourage building concepts that successfully address the needs and aspirations of communities in which Muslims have a significant presence. The Award’s selection process emphasises architecture that not only provides for people’s physical, social and economic needs, but that also stimulates and responds to their cultural aspirations. In the past 16 triennial cycles of the Award, 136 projects have been awarded and nearly 10,000 building projects documented.
“Architecture can – and must – be a catalyst for hope, shaping not only the spaces we inhabit but the futures we imagine. In an age defined by climate crisis, resource inequality and rapid urbanisation, the Aga Khan Award for Architecture celebrates projects that unite society, sustainability and pluralism to empower a more harmonious and resilient world,” said Farrokh Derakhshani, Director of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture.
Download assets from the Award’s online press kit
Read more about the Award’s 2025 Master Jury and 2025 Steering Committee
For more information, please contact:
Nadia Siméon, Deputy Director, Aga Khan Award for Architecture
[email protected]
Optimism and Architecture, edited by Lesley Lokko, will be published by ArchiTangle in September 2025. It presents the awarded and shortlisted projects for the 2025 Aga Khan Award for Architecture. Through essays and conversations, this volume examines how architecture can reinvigorate tradition through innovation, connect local practices with global conversations, and create inclusive spaces where diverse cultures and histories converge. Read more.
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AKAA is a programme of the Aga Khan Trust for Culture, an agency of the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN). Founded and guided by His Late Highness Karim Aga Khan IV, AKDN works in 30 countries to improve the quality of life and to create opportunity for people of all faiths and origins. Its agencies operate over 1,000 programmes and institutions – some more than a century old. The Network’s approach to development spans a range of cultural, social, economic and environmental endeavours. The mandates of its agencies include education and health, agriculture and food security, micro-finance, human habitat, crisis response and disaster reduction, protection of the environment, art, music, architecture, urban planning and conservation, and cultural heritage and preservation. AKDN employs approximately 96,000 people, the majority of whom are based in developing countries. Its annual expenditures for non-profit development activities are approximately $1 billion.