An Argentina-based team has been selected out of 1,070 design entries from 117 countries for the design of Bamiyan Cultural Centre.
The winning proposal was announced by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in collabortion with the Ministry of Information and Culture of Afghanistan.
The winning team is led by Carlos Nahuel Recabarren alongside Manuel Alberto Martínez Catalán and Franco Morero.
Prepatory work on implementing their scheme, entitled Descriptive Memory: The Eternal Presence of Absence, “will start immediately” close to the boundaries of the Bamiyan World Heritage site.
UNESCO teamed up with the Ministry of Information and Culture of Afghanistan in November last year and announced a design competition to build a Cultural Center close to the boundaries of the Bamiyan World Heritage property.
Through funding from the Republic of Korea, the project activities will include design and construction of the Centre, cultural mapping of heritage resources, conservation and restoration, capacity training, and raising heritage awareness through public education.
Paolo Fontani, director of the UNESCO office in Afghanistan, has said that “this competition was an opportunity to create a new pattern for architecture, design and cultural development in Afghanistan. It is one of our objectives to make sure that the Afghan people recognize themselves in the design concept.”
The Afghan President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani has also reportedly endorsed the winning design and acknowledged UNESCO’s competitive selection process.
President Ghani has voiced his dedication to protect Afghanistan’s cultural heritage and it is expected that the Afghan government will set up a major national culture program whose aim sole will be to value the country’s rich cultural diversity.
