Ismaili.NET - Heritage F.I.E.L.D.

All the good guys are here,' remarked architect Hugh Newell Jacobsen, gazing at a goodly number of his peers attending Tuesday's award dinner in the National Building Museum honoring His Highness Prince Karim Aga Kahn IV for fostering design excellence, urban and rural revitalization and historic preservation in countries where Muslims have a major presence.
'Good' in this context meant accomplished, and 'guys' was an operative word because many of the most distinguished members of the architectural fraternity, including Robert A.M. Stern, David Childs, Robert Venturi, Charles Correa, David M. Schwarz and A. Eugene Kohn had come to honor the 49th hereditary imam, or spiritual leader, of 20 million Ismaili Muslims in Asia and Africa and the founder of the Aga Kahn Trust for Culture.

The trust is but one arm of a vast Aga Khan Development Network, a group of agencies promoting social and economic well-being in developing countries. (Architecture-related initiatives include a $500,000 Aga Khan Award for Architecture, presented every three years for outstanding projects addressing social needs in the Muslim world.) Offering tributes to a man more famous for giving awards (and money) than receiving them were World Bank President James Wolfensohn and Mr. Correa, who flew in from his home in Bombay, India, for the occasion to praise the honoree for helping prod Islamic architecture out of its 'confused state' in the 1970s.

'He was tough about making us think where we wanted to go,' Mr. Correa said after a film tribute depicting many of the stunning landmarks whose architects have received the Aga Khan Award.

The very personable billionaire jet-setter and racehorse owner, who was given his 'Highness' title by Queen Elizabeth and also is known among friends as 'K' or simply 'HH,' accepted this year's Vincent Scully Prize, given by the museum to recognize individuals for their contributions to all aspects of architecture, design, planning and preservation.

It is named for the 84-year-old influential Yale professor who was its first recipient and who still teaches at the University of Miami and Yale.

The $25,000 gift that accompanies a crystal obelisk was matched by an equal amount from its recipient, thus providing $50,000 in scholarships for architecture students from the Third World attending Harvard (the Aga Khan's alma mater), Massachusetts Institute of Technology and