Gallery: An Afghan Museum That Mimics Ancient Buddhist Monasteries
M2R01Exposition area
UNESCO recently announced the winning design for a cultural center in the Bamiyan Valley in Afghanistan.
M2R02View 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.
M2R03View 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.
M2R04Main Hall square
It’ll be a peaceful piazza, like a contemporary version of the sanctuaries built into the foothills centuries ago.
M2R05View 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.”
