Asif Khan’s Architecture as Art Practice 

Asif Khan is in a contemplative mood. When we speak, the London-based architect has just returned from Saudi Arabia, having taken his parents to see an artwork he created for this year’s Islamic Arts Biennale in Jeddah: the Glass Qur’an is a perfect facsimile of the central Islamic religious text, with each of the 600 pages recreated in 0.1 millimeter thick glass and hand-gilded calligraphy. “My dad was very emotional,” he recalls, explaining that it was the first time the family had visited the country and done umrah (the Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca that can be done anytime of the year) together.

The trip isn’t the only reason for this moment of pause. Last year, he tells me, he had heart surgery—which gave him a profound shift in perspective. “I felt [before the surgery] as if there was nothing left to lose, and that I needed to make my final statements about why I’m here,” he says. The result was a renewed sense of clarity about what ties together his body of work. “I now understand that I approach architecture as an art practice,” he explains. “A building has the power to change the way you think, and the purpose of art is also to transform our perspectives—that’s my interest.”

It all makes sense when you look at the expressive nature of his current range of projects. Take the renewal of London’s Barbican Centre—this, he says, is “about my father,” with whom he visited the arts venue and residential development as a child. “He always dreamed of living in the Barbican—the lake there reminded him of the Mughal Shalimar Gardens in Lahore,” he says. Also in his hometown is the highly anticipated London Museum, which is relocating to the 850-year-old former meat market, Smithfield next year. Khan has designed what he calls a “coral reef” for culture, using the 47 shop fronts around the perimeter as space for the museum to curate partnerships with smaller organizations. “A museum that faces the city can continuously absorb it into its facade and become a protagonist in its future.”

Five years away from completion is his Museum of the Incense Road in Saudi Arabia. Located along an ancient trade route, it will only be open at night. “The caravans along the incense road would have moved at night, so you’ll arrive there in the right state of mind and with a sense of smell that’s 20 percent stronger than in the daytime,” he explains.