DUSHANE, February 3, 2014, Asia-Plus - After ten years as the premiere online resource for the study of material and visual culture in Islamic societies, Archnet has been re-imagined and restructured, the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) reports.

The new Archnet -- a collaboration between the Aga Khan Trust for Culture and the Aga Khan Documentation Center at MIT Libraries -- is a portal to rich and unique scholarly resources featuring thousands of sites, publications, images, and more focused on architecture, urbanism, environmental and landscape design, visual culture, and conservation issues related to the Muslim world.

Archnet is a globally-accessible, intellectual resource focused on architecture, urbanism, environmental and landscape design, visual culture, and conservation issues related to the Muslim world.

Archnet’s mission is to provide ready access to unique visual and textual material to facilitate teaching, scholarship, and professional work of high quality.  Officially launched in 2002 as a partnership between the Aga Khan Trust for Culture and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Archnet has since evolved into the largest, open, online architectural library with a focus on Muslim cultures.  Its digital archives form a comprehensive resource on architecture, urban design, landscape, development, and related issues.  Archnet provides a bridge for interested persons to learn how to enhance the quality of the built environment, to compensate for lack of resources for students and faculty in academic institutions, and to highlight the culture and traditions of Islam.

The ambition of Archnet 2.0 is to be the authority in the field of architecture and the built environment in Muslim societies today by providing an unparalleled resource featuring vetted and refereed articles, data and research.  Through contributions from the Aga Khan Trust for Culture, the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at Harvard and MIT, and donated collections of historic archives and documentation on contemporary building trends shaping the built environment today, Archnet continues to grow and is well positioned to realize this ambition.

Version 2.0 of Archnet, developed in 2013 and launched in 2014, is a partnership between the Aga Khan Trust for Culture and the Aga Khan Documentation Center at MIT Libraries.  Together, these two institutions, established over three decades ago, share an integral education mission to generate and disseminate knowledge and resources; provide fora for debate and discussion; showcase best practices and lessons learned; and, present Muslim visual and material culture with historic, cultural, and geographic specificity.