IAMM preserver and educator of Islamic art
Albukhary shares Islamic cultural institution’s development
By Cinatra Fernandes
KUWAIT CITY, March 28: Syed Mohamad Albukhary Director of the Islamic Art Museum Malaysia (IAMM), in his lecture titled ‘Looking forward, looking backwards’ shared the story behind the development of the Islamic cultural institution and its many campaigns to promote Islamic art and culture in Malaysia. The lecture was held at the Yarmouk Cultural Centre as part of the Dar Al Athar Al Islamiyyah’s 22nd cultural season.
Syed Mohamad Albukhary, a business graduate who spent almost two decades being inspired by the inescapable creativity of Italy, returned to Malaysia to found the Islamic Art Museum Malaysia. Since the museum opened in 1998, he has been the director, supervising the growth of the museum and the collection with a judicious buying policy and constant exposure to international developments in Islamic art and museum studies.
IAMM has been the recipient of numerous awards and has acquired a worldwide reputation for excellence. It is a pioneering institution in Southeast Asia, a region with a large Muslim population. With the support of the Albukhary Foundation, he has energetically pressed for recognition of Malaysia as a centre of scholarship and culture and his efforts have been recognized with numerous awards, including the prestigious Mont Blanc Arts Patronage Award.
Albukhary began his lecture by sharing an anecdote of a chance meeting with the Malaysian Prime Minister at the old bridge of Florence at Ponte vecchio in July 1991. It was only later, in 1995, when a Lebanese collector of gold coins in Paris offered Albukhary a collection of 2500 pieces, that he reached out to the Malaysian government to buy the collection and display it in a museum.
As there was no museum in which to display the coins, Albukhary consulted with his family and they decided to build one themselves, entirely on their expense to ensure autonomy with the government only allocating the land.
The building was designed by Italian
A section of the audience
architect Roberto Monsani and initial plans were of a total area of 130,000 sq feet, but continuous additions and expanses have led to IAMM being three times that size. The ornamentation of the building by skilled craftsmen from Iran and central Asia to lend an Islamic sensibility to the otherwise contemporary architecture. The museum entrance façade and exterior domes were inspired by the great mosque of Safavid Iran.
Albukhary, who had no prior experience in museum management, took on this herculean task by extensive research and survey of international museums the British Museum, Musee du Louvre, Victoria and Albert Museum, the Guggenheim in New York and the Metropolitan Museum.
The groundbreaking ceremony was held on May 16, 1997. The second phase of Sheikha Hussah Al-Sabah, Director General and Co-founder of DAI
development saw the enlargement of the 130,000 sq feet area to 300,000 sq feet and included many facilities such as a conservation centre, education centre, scholar’s library, auditorium, museum restaurant, children’s library, museum shop, and two galleries for temporary exhibitions. The first acquisition of the museum was an 18th century Quran from China. The IAMM also became the custodian of the large collection of the Departments of Islamic Development of Malaysian, of 5,694 artefacts.
Albukhary poached the best from the aviation sector to fill the IT, Marketing and HR departments of the Museum. The expanse of the museum work include curatorial affairs, collection management, conservation, display, maintenance, scholar’s library,
A flyer of the event.