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The Launching Exhibition of the top Fifteen Design Submissions for the Bamiyan Culture Centre at Babur Garden in Kabul on 12 May 2015
May 12, 2015 - UNESCO Office in Afghanistan | An exhibition of the top fifteen Architectural Design submissions for the Bamiyan Culture Centre was launched by the UNESCO Office in Afghanistan, together with the Afghan Ministry of Information and Culture on 12 May 2015 at Babur Garden in Kabul, Afghanistan.
The exhibition acknowledges the works proposed by more than a thousand of architects from all over the world that showcases the most outstanding submission number and design.
During the launching ceremony, Dr. Omra Khan Massoudi, the Director of the Afghanistan National Museum, congratulated UNESCO for its initiative of Bamiyan Culture Center and emphasized his sincere wish for the continued collaborative efforts between UNESCO and Ministry of Information and Culture toward sustainability and survival of Afghanistan’s cultural heritage. He also expressed his sincere gratitude to the Republic of Korea, for the generous funding support to this project.
Mr. Paolo Fontani, the Director and Representative of the UNESCO Office in Afghanistan followed Dr. Massoudi’s remarks and stated that the building will provide adaptable space that can be used for an extensive variety of purposes, ultimately benefiting many stakeholders across a wide demographic ranging from young school children and visiting scholars, to national and international organization’s wishing to hold conferences, to local people who can be trained in arts and crafts, conservation, as well as in other skills for employment in the culture and tourism industries.
The ceremony event announced that the exhibition is open to the public from 12 May to 12 June 2015 at Babur Garden.
The Bamiyan Culture Centre project is funded by the Republic of Korea and administered by the UNESCO Office in Afghanistan in partnership with the Afghan Ministry of Information and Culture. The process of the selection of the Bamiyan Culture Centre design was the first time that the design of such a public building in Afghanistan was selected through an open international competition. The future cultural centre in Bamiyan will serve as a platform to promote art, history, and music and community interaction with a focus on community economic development.
The Bamiyan Culture Centre Design Competition was launched in November 2014 by the UNESCO Office in Afghanistan, and in partnership with the International Union of Architects (UIA). This competition was an equal opportunity for individual architects, engineers and students from around the world to submit a design proposal. The Competition resulted in an astonishing 1,070 design entries, from 117 countries.
A group of seven professional and experienced Jury members examined each of the designs and voted for an Argentina-based architecture team as the winning entry and for four runners-up from Turkey, Cyprus, France and the Netherlands.
