aga khan museum toronto’s best-kept secret

Perspective rendering of the future Aga Khan Museum in Toronto, from canadianarchitect.com

The Aga Khan (آقا خان), spiritual leader of the Ismaili Muslims, is celebrating his golden jubilee this year. Fittingly and well-deservedly, his media presence has been everywhere. The Aga Khan has spent his life promoting community development, pluralism, peace, and as a plus, a legacy of great architecture.

The New Ismaili Centre by Charles Correa, from canadianarchitect.com

The Aga Khan seems to have taken a liking for Canada, and we have two major projects under construction right now in Toronto and Ottawa. Toronto outbid London (England!) for the Aga Khan Museum, a three-part project consisting of museum, religious, and cultural centre.

The Fumihiko Maki designed Aga Khan Museum, from canadianarchitect.com

The designs are still being completed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Fumihiko Maki, celebrated architect Charles Correa, Vladimir Djurovik of Lebanon, with Moriyama & Teshima from Toronto overseeing the project construction. This is truly a stellar cast of architects, and I have high hopes that this will be the most exciting project in Toronto for years to come (complete in 2011).

View of Vladimir Djurovik’s landscaped gardens, from canadianarchitect.com

It is too bad though that the old Bata Shoe headquarters were demolished for this plan… As the Toronto Star’s Christopher Hume aptly remarked, “Surely there’s an element of irony when an architecturally worthy building must be destroyed in the name of culture.”

Canada’s second Aga Khan project is the Ottawa Centre of Pluralism, to be housed in the former building of the War Museum.

Aga Khan Centre of Pluralism in Ottawa, photo courtesy of the Government of Canada

yes we can

barack obama’s just too convincing for his own good.

i’m not even american and i feel patriotic when i hear him speak.

i think he’s finally convinced me with his talk about mixed race.

fostering radical activists

cross-posted to thesis matrix, as an ongoing development of my masters thesis research.

Greenpeace activists campaigning against nuclear power in Brasilia

In a city that has been all but abandoned by government and corporations, Detroit citizens have had to become self-reliant. Because of declining tax revenues, the city has had to cut down on many basic services. Fed up with the lack of security, mass transit, utilities, locals have banded together in community organizations to combat the city’s ills and negative image.

year in review: spectacular tasings

we’re back to the era of making a spectacle of torture. a selection of our police forces’ finest moments. patriot act indeed.

1. “don’t tase me, bro” university of florida student tasered at john kerry forum

2. polish immigrant is tased to death by the RCMP in the vancouver international airport. the video shows the RCMP tasered the man 25 seconds after arriving. video taken by a shocked bystander.

multiculturalism is…

I was reminded of what reasonable accommodation should mean when I was back in Toronto.

Emergency Services ad: emergency services knows no language barriers, Bay and Dundas, Toronto.

 

corporate empires shirking social responsibilities

At the end of the industrial revolution, companies finally grasped the importance of creating pleasant working and living environments for their workers. Industrialists created pleasant towns for their workers with schools, community centres, and amenities that anyone in the middle class could only dream of.

Saltaire, Yorkshire, built in 1851-1876 as a utopian factory town (Wikipedia)

This was a huge shift from the early industrial revolution when workers were housed in cramped spaces without windows, ventilation, and barely a toilet. Companies squeezed the most profit they could from their workers.

Does this sound familiar? It is because multi-national corporations, aided by the world trade organization, world bank, and IMF have reverted to their cycle of exploiting their customers and employees, in the name of profits.

the (un)intended consequences of building walls

Further to my original post, What happened to: no more wars, no more walls?

Bryan Finocki from Subtopia writes of the new wall of capitalist exclusion, in reference to the myriad of walls going up in our world, mostly between wealthy nation-states and their less fortunate neighbours. In our capitalist system, goods and capital are allowed to move freely, but migrants cannot. For the corporate elite and their companies, this is essential to distance themselves from the growing inequities between the rich and the poor.

We’re now beginning to realize that the current system of capitalism generates and distributes wealth in a highly unbalanced manner. But instead of addressing these issues, the champions of capitalism (most notably the States and its corporation-states) are blocking the problem out.There have been a number of unexpected consequences to the walls being constructed hastily around the globe.

madame albright on ‘business and the poor’

What role, if any, do corporations have in addressing poverty?

Dr. Albright believes that businesses have the moral imperative to do more for the developing countries they are operating in. Today’s multinationals wield enormous powers, and with that comes responsibility. They must work to ensure their workers have adequate health care and labour protections, and most importantly, legal protections on land ownership. To achieve this, international bodies such as the U.N. and nation-states must include businesses in their aid development programs.

My question is this: by accepting that corporations must be involved with the process of eliminating poverty, we are affirming a capitalist system that has produced enormous discrepancies in wealth between rich and poor, and one that has exploited the working class in many 3rd world countries. We are further entrenching ourselves in a system that is flawed from in its conception - is this the right direction to head in?

pq please go to hell. you too, pauline marois.

Pauline Marois you’re hurting your own people. Your quest to create a language-based Quebec citizenship (if you can’t speak French, you can’t run for public office), is absurd.

We’re in Canada, a country that opens its doors to immigrants because that is what defines our country. As Quebec Premier Jean Charest said: “People in the rest of Canada, in the United States and in France are wondering what’s going on in Quebec, where we’ve earned a reputation for openness and tolerance.” He is 100% correct.

I love Quebec, its culture, its people. Most of all the people. But if the PQ has its way what makes this place unique and wonderful will definitely be destroyed.

the city must plan the city

It is time for us citizens to understand that in order to create great cities, we must depoliticize the approval process for new buildings. That is, we cannot allow politicians to be making decisions about what gets built in their neighbourhood and what doesn’t any longer.