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Welcome to ARCHNET, an Open Access, intellectual resource focused on the built environment of Muslim societies.Our mission:&nbsp;<ul><li>Facilitate excellence in scholarship, and professional work by providing ready access to quality, unique texts, and media focused on architecture, urbanism, environmental and landscape design, conservation issues, visual and material cultures, and related topics, both historically and in terms of contemporary best practices.</li><li>Enable teaching and learning in these domains by providing educators with reliable, effective pedagogical material and teaching aids.&nbsp;</li><li>Serve serves as a platform through which scholars, practitioners, and institutions can bring their work to new global audiences.&nbsp;</li><li>Promote intercultural understanding and dialogue through reliable, high-quality, peer-reviewed material on the diversity of, and pluralism within Muslim societies and the interaction between Islamic and other religious, cultural, and philosophical traditions.</li><li>Enable easy access to a wide variety of resources via a custom-built, web-based, mobile-friendly platform optimized to minimize financial, infrastructural, linguistic, and other barriers to access.&nbsp;&nbsp;</li></ul>Launched in 2002 after several years of development, ARCHNET is a pioneering digital resource that has proven a reliable authority on the built environment of Muslim societies, past, and present.&nbsp;ARCHNET is a partnership between the <a href="https://www.archnet.org/collections/1342" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Aga Khan Documentation Center, MIT Libraries </a>(AKDC@MIT) and the <a href="https://www.archnet.org/authorities/1903" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Aga Khan Trust for Culture</a> (AKTC), with support from the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at Harvard and MIT. ARCHNET NEXT was developed by <a href="https://www.performantsoftware.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Performant Software Solutions</a>.

About

Hamid Mirmiran

architect/planner

Hadi Mirmiran

library

Iran

<div>The functional structure of the library, constructed mainly in concrete and glass, comprises two main parts: the reading rooms and the closed book storage building. The solid mass of the book storage represents the collections of the past its façade is patterned in bronze with inscriptions from the oldest Elamite text. The reading rooms are conceived as vessels of ever-changing and evolving thoughts, and designed as a crystalline transparent element, with the reading room rotated towards the Hafez mausoleum. The library is located in the Nassaji gardens and the opportunity was taken for its restoration according to classic Persian char bagh principles.</div><div><hr></div><div>Source: Aga Khan Trust for Culture </div>

Completion

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digital photograph

National Library and Documentation Centre

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National Library and Documentation CentreShiraz, Iran

National Library and Documentation Centre
Shiraz, Iran