Gallery: An Afghan Museum That Mimics Ancient Buddhist Monasteries

  • Image may contain Human Person Flooring Floor Corridor Clothing and Apparel
    M2R
    01

    Exposition area

    UNESCO recently announced the winning design for a cultural center in the Bamiyan Valley in Afghanistan.
  • Image may contain Outdoors Nature Human Person Plant Grass Scenery Landscape Park Lawn and Yard
    M2R
    02

    View towards buddha Cliffs

    The cultural center will help memorialize two giant Buddha statues built in the the 6th century to mark the most western point of Buddhism’s expansion on the ancient Silk Road.
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    M2R
    03

    View towards buddha Cliffs2

    In 2001, the Taliban destroyed the idols with dynamite. M2R's winning proposal will honor the Buddha's not by rebuilding them or monuments, but mimicking the caves Buddhists built in the ground ages ago, for worship.
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    M2R
    04

    Main Hall square

    It’ll be a peaceful piazza, like a contemporary version of the sanctuaries built into the foothills centuries ago.
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    M2R
    05

    View from Buddha Cliffs

    "Much of recent architecture has become obsessed with image and visibility," says M2R architect Nahuel Recabarren, "but not every building can be a monument.”
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