Afghanistan Architecture: Buildings Developments

Afghanistan architecture news, Kabul building images, Architect contest, Modern Central Asian designs

Afghanistan Architecture : Buildings

Key Contemporary Architectural + Property Developments, Central Asia Built Environment

post updated 18 February 2024

For the very latest additions to e-architect in Afghanistan, please see: Afghanistan

Afghan Architecture News – latest additions to this page, arranged chronologically:

Afghanistan Architecture News

5 June 2023
Architectural heritage like you haven’t seen it before
Visual record of four historic building sites in Afghanistan
“Ways of Seeing” project documents endangered Afghan heritage sites through digital imaging, virtual reality, and hand-drawn professional renderings.

The shrine of Khwaja Abu Nasr Parsa in Balkh – the “Green Mosque”:
Ways of seeing: Afghanistan historic building sites

If it were more accessible, the Green Mosque would attract many visitors. But Balkh is located in northern Afghanistan, roughly 50 miles from the border with Uzbekistan, and few outsiders will ever reach it. Still, anyone can now get a vivid sense of the mosque thanks to MIT’s new “Ways of Seeing” project, an innovative form of historic preservation:

Ways of seeing, Afghanistan historic buildings

30 Aug 2013
Cultural Center of the Russian Federation in Kabul
Design: Architectural bureau A.Len
Cultural Center Kabul Building
image from architects
Cultural Center of the Russian Federation in Kabul
This design received the Grand Prix of the international contest “Zodchestvo” in Moscow and Tatlin’s award (one of the most prestigious architectural awards in Russia).

3 May 2013
Maria Grazia Cutuli Primary School, Herat, western Afghanistan
Maria Grazia Cutuli Primary School Afghanistan Building
picture © AKAA / Nazes Afroz
Maria Grazia Cutuli School Building
This building has been shortlisted for the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 2013. The school property accommodates eight classrooms, various staff accommodation, a double-height library and a garden which acts as a green classroom. Built of reinforced concrete with brick cladding, the structures are painted rather than rendered, to save costs.

Afghanistan Architecture

15 Feb 2013
Afghanistan School Building
Tajrabawi Girls High School building
photo : Article 25
Afghanistan School Building
Evaluation of School Building Projects in Afghanistan. This architectural article was written by Isona Shibata of Article 25.

13 Oct 2012
National Museum of Afghanistan, Kabul
Design: Matteo Cainer Architects Ltd
National Museum of Afghanistan Building Kabul
image from architects practice
National Museum of Afghanistan
The construction of the Afghan museum celebrates the richness of Afghanistan’s cultural heritage and the spirit of its peoples. In a nation devastated by war, the wealth of its cultural background and the spirit of its peoples are embodied here. In spite of the years of conflict and turmoil, the underlying strengths of the country remain intact, embedded in the earth and rising from it. The new National Museum of Afghanistan awakens the nation’s cultural heritage through powerful symbolic references, where physical fragments and traces inform us of its past.

Bamiyan Cultural Centre Design Competition
Design: Barna Architects
Bamiyan Cultural Centre Afghanistan Developments
image courtesy of architecture office
Bamiyan Cultural Centre Design
The architects’ 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 environment. The architecture firm envisioned a design which is in coherence with the native peoples’ mental and emotional connection to their homeland, including the environmental, physiological, cognitive, cultural, and spiritual dimensions of life.

Arzu Rugs Afghanistan
Design: Zaha Hadid Architects
arzu rug Afghanistan by Zaha Hadid architect
image from architects
Arzu Rugs Afghanistan
Arzu, which means “hope” in Dari, is an innovative model of social entrepreneurship that helps Afghan women weavers and their families break the cycle of poverty by providing them steady income and access to education and healthcare by sourcing and selling the rugs they weave.

More Afghanistan Architecture online soon

Location: Afghanistan, Asia

Buildings in countries near Afghanistan

Pakistan Architecture

Flooding in Pakistan – Rebuilding
Flooding in Pakistan : Report from Article 25

Indian Architecture

China

Buildings / photos for the Afghanistan Architecture – Central Asian Built Environment design updates page welcome.