Aga Khan Boulevard

The Aga Khan Museum in Toronto's North York neighborhood is a major center for Islamic art and culture. It houses a collection of around 1,200 rare objects assembled by Shah Karim al-Husayni and Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan. The initiative of the Aga Khan Trust for Culture aims to promote understanding of Muslim cultures and their connections to other civilizations through art. In addition to its permanent collection, the museum presents special exhibitions that change every year and draw on current research and new artistic developments. These are complemented by educational programs and performing arts events that round out the cultural offerings.

The museum's architecture, designed by Pritzker Prize winner Fumihiko Maki, is a highlight in its own right. The rectangular building is made of sandblasted white Brazilian granite and oriented so that it is in a constant interplay of light and shadow, much like a sundial. Inside the building is a courtyard that serves as a quiet retreat. Its glass walls are printed with a double pattern reminiscent of traditional Islamic jali screens, creating three-dimensional light effects. On the second level, large openings with modern zinc screens frame the public areas, while perforated aluminum skylights in the galleries let soft natural light into the exhibition spaces. The museum shares a 6.8-hectare (17-acre) site with the Ismaili Centre and public gardens that offer a contemporary interpretation of the Islamic charbagh courtyard.

In the permanent collection, you can admire works of art spanning more than ten centuries, including ceramics, metalwork, paintings, and manuscripts. Particularly noteworthy is the Bellerive Room, which displays a selection from the ceramics collection of the late Princess Catherine Aga Khan and recreates the Persian salon of her home in Geneva. The collection also includes important manuscripts such as the earliest known copy of Avicenna's medical canon from the year 1052, as well as pages from the famous Blue Qur'an. The museum also serves as an archive for historical materials of the Ismaili community and offers spaces for cultural exchange between the Islamic and Western worlds.