Sarkis named first Aga Khan Professor

Dean of the Graduate School of Design (GSD) Peter G. Rowe has named A. Hashim Sarkis the first Aga Khan Professor of Landscape Architecture and Urbanism in Muslim Societies. Sarkis has taught at the GSD since 1995 and has been associate professor of architecture since January 2001. His teaching has covered a range of topics, in addition to studio design, including “Green Modern: A History of Environmental Consciousness from Patrick Geddes to the Present,” and “Practices in Democracy,” with a scope of inquiry addressing non-Western examples and broad issues of development.

Sarkis’ publications include “Circa 1958: Lebanon in the Pictures and Plans of Constantinos Doxiadis, Projecting Beirut” (co-edited with Peter G. Rowe), and from the Harvard Design School/Prestel CASE series, “Le Corbusier’s Venice Hospital,” which Sarkis edited in addition to being one of the series’ editors. He is principal investigator for a research project on the design of urban schools in America, funded by a faculty research grant from the Design School.

Sarkis runs a private design practice in Cambridge and Beirut. His projects include a housing complex for the fishermen of Tyre in South Lebanon, an agricultural school in North Lebanon, a park in downtown Beirut, and several projects focusing on rural development. Sarkis has been a lecturer and researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a visiting design critic at Yale and the Rhode Island School of Design (R.I.S.D.), and a visiting lecturer at the American University of Beirut and the Universidad Metropolitana in Caracas, Venezuela.

Sarkis received the B.Arch. and B.F.A. from R.I.S.D., the M.Arch. from the GSD, and the Ph.D. in architecture from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard.