Museum Collections
Themed Installation: Architecture
May 21, 2019 - Nov 25, 2019

The Collections Gallery is dedicated to showcasing the artistic achievements and lasting legacies of Muslim civilizations between the 9th and 19th centuries.

The Collections Gallery of the Aga Khan Museum is dedicated to showcasing the artistic achievements and lasting legacies of Muslim civilizations between the 9th and 19th centuries. Objects on view come from as far afield as Spain in the west and China in the east.
 

COLLECTIONS GALLERY

 

 

In the Collections Gallery, visitors will enjoy a rotating display of nearly 200 objects from the Museum’s Permanent Collection, masterpieces reflecting a broad range of artistic styles and representing more than ten centuries of human history. Including such works of art as manuscripts, painting, ceramics, glass, and textiles, the Collections Gallery provides an overview of the artistic, intellectual, and scientific contributions of Muslim civilizations to world history and heritage.

 

Parts of the gallery are refreshed twice a year with themed installations that explore special topics and allow light-sensitive materials to rest.
 

THEMED INSTALLATION 

 

 

ARCHITECTURE, May 21 – November 25, 2019

 

Explore examples of architecture and decorative elements in 15th to 19th century paintings from the Aga Khan Museum’s permanent collection.

 

Throughout the world, buildings and structures have been constructed in various materials as influenced by the climate and natural resources available in a particular region. Aesthetic design and functional needs led to the some of the beautiful and unique architectural marvels seen throughout Muslim civilizations. They were built as places to live, to worship, to gather around and socialize, to rule, to educate, to be buried in, or even to bathe. Geometric patterns were the most common type of decorations used on buildings. Other types of decorations consist of floral motifs, calligraphic panels, and figurative elements.
Brown silhouette of a building with an open door and an onion dome roofLook for this symbol on object labels
 

BELLERIVE ROOM

 

The Bellerive Room is a re-creation of a room in the Château de Bellerive in Geneva, Switzerland, home of the late Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan and Princess Catherine Aga Khan. Decorated in the style of a Persian Salon (La Chambre Persanne), the original salon displayed part of what is now the Aga Khan Museum’s Permanent Collection. The Bellerive Room is free for visitors to enjoy during Museum hours and is available for private functions and other events.

Interior room with red carpet, wooden showcases with ceramic objects on three visible walls, a round couch seat surrounds a pillar in the middle of the room.
La Chambre Persane. Photograph courtesy of the Aga Khan Trust for Culture.

 


* Objects below are featured in the themed installation ARCHITECTURE, part of the Collection Gallery exhibition.

 

Click here to browse the collections.

Hours and Admission

How To Get Here

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HIGHLIGHTS GALLERY

A castle guardian on a faraway island discovered a casket and pulled it from the sea, in front of a red building with 5 window archways and text at the top and bottom of the painting. Ruled painting, with a short text on top and bottom. Exterior scene, a male figure sitting on a throne and 10 figures whose attention is directed to him. Capital of typical form with floral designs crisply carved, traces of red pigment, original lines visible on top and base for carving from the block. Large text box with text in multiple directions, to the left of a beautiful palace hall with a yellow gold-finialled dome extends beyond the picture frame into the page-margin and thirteen figures. A young man in green with a white turban stands on a small red platform in the doorway, engulfed in a golden flame nimbus, beside him tall leafy plants, above 17 lines of text. Figures sitting on a roof top with books spread between them, one figure sits with the Brahmin priests by the small domed shrine of an idol In an inner room of a busy palace, two figures sit together, with an idol in a wall-niche. Painting of an aerial view of an encampment comprises polychrome structures such as tents, pavilions, a harem, and royal diwans in bright colours. Blue, teal and white panel in the form of a mihrab arch delicately carved in high relief enclosing an inner trefoil palmette standing on a short waisted foot.

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