Project Collections: Bamiyan Cultural Centre

The Pattern of Social and Natural Environment of the Bamiyan ValleyThe project aims to reveal the embroidery of green field into the Cultural Centre territory, also it tend to imply a combination of anthropomorphic forms that repeat Buddha’s cliffs and Islamic symbolism under the entrance... full entry

14 BLUE FOLLIES OF BAMIYANThe Bamiyan Cultural Centre was imagined as an epitome of the history and culture that got eclipsed by the tribulations of Afghanistan.  The Centre will unify the people of Afghanistan and restore the importance of lost culture and art. Bamiyan was an economic... full entry

The Bamiyan Vaults serve as a cultural refuge, protecting priceless cultural artefacts,knowledge and traditions through its mix of educational, artistic and social programsfor visitors and residents alike. Using locally sourced materials of stone, sand, mudand concrete, its form utilizes the... full entry

SLEEPING BUDDHA GAZING UPON BUDDHAS CLIFF full entry

Bamiyan is a testimony on the symbiosis coexistence of nature and human. Here nature is not conquered for human consumption in a hedonistic manner but elegantly and sustainably utilized for human comfort evidenced in its vernacular architecture and culture. Although the two are in contrast from... full entry

Just as caravans navigating the Silk Road were comprised of an aggregate group of independent vessels, each transporting fragments of otherworldly origin, so too is our proposal for the Bamiyan Cultural Center conceived of as an assembly of vessels dedicated to cultural exchange, knowledge... full entry

The Bamiyan Cultural CentreThe image most of us have of Afghanistan is that of a territory afflicted by a perpetual state of conflict and turmoil for most of its history. But the simplification of an entire country, like any other, is far from reality. Landlocked at the crossroads between eastern... full entry

Monument, Memory, and the SublimeTowards a Spiritual Architecture: A Proposal for the a new AcropolisThe Bamiyan Cliffs along with the surrounding landscape and culture feels like an ineffableplace, a place that exists between worlds, beyond space and time, transcendingall things and moving into... full entry

``…, citizens must participate in the design of buildings, thereby leading to a triangular relationship between the citizen, the architect and the builder. This means that the task of the architect is not to express his own ideas in the building but those of the local, the people and the... full entry

Enclosure of emancipationOn HeritageThe proposal is conceived around the idea that Heritage is manifestation. Heritage does not imply only the past, but the continuous development of subjects. In Bamiyan’s case we can trace two aspects of it; on the one hand, the physical elements reified on... full entry

KSR Architect's proposal provides a cultural campus for the community, and a framework for flexible growth at the crossroad of civilisation in Afghanistan.It represents the country’s rich heritage and enriches community life through the sharing and development of new ideas, drawing on the... full entry

The Bamiyan Cultural CentreDesign by Barna ArchitectsOur focus for the design of the Bamiyan Cultural Center was to find the right form of integration from an ecological perspective, for this reason it is indispensable to understand the local inhabitants’ lives and their connection to the... full entry

Resonance of AbsencePalimpsestFor hundreds of years, different tribes, dynasties, governments and religions have tried to abolish signs of their former and represent themselves on top of others pursuing the whim of becoming eternal. Culture of many regions in the world today is like a palimpsest... full entry

01 introductionThe Bamiyan landscape embeds a strong flow of ‘energies’ and ‘tensions’. Analysing the scape of Bamiyan Valley, we interpret two contrasting readings: a field of energy flows, dissipated and scattered in the landscape; and a unitary collection of strong focal... full entry