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A Palestinian student has received the Stipendium Hungaricum Award for Excellence in the Hungarian Language, a prestigious award granted annually to the top scholarship students in Hungary. Omar Abu Samhoud studies computer science at Nyíregyháza University.
The award in recognition of outstanding academic achievement and proficiency in the Hungarian language, marks a remarkable milestone for the young student, who has overcome immense challenges to excel in a foreign land. He said that his motivation stemmed from a deep desire to alleviate the burdens on his family in Gaza and bring them some joy amid the current dire circumstances.
“My family is still in Gaza, enduring unimaginable hardships every day,” said Abu Samhoud. “I didn’t want to be an extra burden on them. Instead, I wanted to give them something to be proud of, something that brings them happiness, even from afar. This award is for them.”
The dire situation in Gaza, marked by extreme uncertainty, has weighed heavily on Abu Samhoud and many other students in similar circumstances.
However, it has also been the driving force behind their relentless pursuit of excellence, serving as an inspiration to others.
The awards ceremony, held in Budapest, was attended by representatives from the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, including Deputy State Secretary Miklós Lengyel.
Abu Samhoud was also celebrated by the Embassy of the State of Palestine in the Hungarian capital. Ambassador Dr Fadi Elhusseini congratulated him and presented him with a special gift in recognition of his achievement.
“We are extremely proud of him. His family is proud of him. His homeland is proud of him,” said Elhusseini. “This achievement will serve as a motivation for others and a reminder that success always follows those who persevere. Omar Abu Samhoud embodies the resilience and determination of the great Palestinian people and the steadfastness of the youth in rising above all hardships.”
Palestinian student from Gaza Omar Abu Samhoud (far L) receives the Stipendium Hungaricum Award for Excellence in the Hungarian Language, a prestigious award granted annually to the top scholarship students in Hungary.
In medieval times, Arab craftsmen led the world with their sublime, sophisticated building skills. As Paris’s Notre-Dame prepares to reopen, that tradition continues.
Only once in a century does one host Olympic and Paralympic Games, only once in a millennium does one rebuild a cathedral,” declared French President Emmanuel Macron in his 2024 New Year speech.
On 8 December, all eyes will turn once more to France’s iconic landmark Notre-Dame de Paris as it officially reopens to the public following the fire of April 2019 that nearly destroyed it.
How have the French succeeded in completing what had seemed like mission impossible, this gargantuan task, on time and on budget within the five years that Macron first promised on that fateful night of 15 April?
The answer is the same as throughout history. Money and leadership are essential, but the most important thing of all in any prestige building project is the quality of the labour. Top people work fast and produce top results. Mediocre craftsmen, no matter how much time they are given, can only ever produce mediocre results.
At the Notre-Dame rebuilding, great care was taken by the leadership to cast far and wide for the absolute creme de la creme of craftsmen, wherever they were to be found.
As a result, among the 250 companies and hundreds of engineers, masons, carpenters, stained glass specialists and other professionals enlisted to work on the rebuilding, there were people from all over the world.
The master carpenters, for example, working to recreate the wooden beams of the cathedral’s roof trusses, were from the United States, the UK, Spain, Denmark, Bosnia and India, as well as France.
They included Christians, Jews, Hindus and Muslims, all chosen because of their high level of skill in using the traditional medieval methods of craftsmanship, skills now in retreat under the onslaught of computer precision, mass production and the relentless advance of industrial technology.
Deep understanding of geometry
When Europe’s great cathedrals were built over a thousand years ago, they, too, were at the forefront of science. Their size, their height and their sheer complexity were the very embodiment of the latest engineering technology.
Nothing comparable had been seen on the European continent before except in modern Spain and Portugal, where Arab Muslims, originally from Syria, had been ruling for nearly 800 years, and in Sicily, where Arab Muslims originally from Egypt and North Africa, had been ruling for over 250 years.
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These men had a deep understanding of geometry, building stresses and vaulting techniques, knowledge that had been widespread across the Islamic world since the eighth and ninth centuries
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In both the caliphate of Cordoba and the emirate of Sicily, the construction world was dominated by Arab Muslim structural engineers and craftsmen, men who were both literate and numerate, unlike their European Christian counterparts.
These men had a deep understanding of geometry, building stresses and vaulting techniques, knowledge that had been widespread across the Islamic world since the eighth and ninth centuries when the great Bayt al-Hikma (House of Wisdom) centre of learning in Baghdad was at its peak.
It is no accident that the first stone vaulted structures appeared in Latin Christendom just 10 years after the fall of Toledo, where the 10th-century ribbed vaulted mosque dome of Bab al-Mardum – today the church of Cristo de la Luz – is still extant and visitable.
Likewise, in Pisa, where there was no pre-existing local building tradition or school of architecture, Pisa Cathedral (1064) and then the Leaning Tower appeared suddenly on Italian soil soon after the Pisans’ successful military campaigns against the Arab rulers in Sicily.
People walk past the leaning tower of Pisa and the cathedral at night on March 16, 2014 in Pisa. AFP PHOTO / FABIO MUZZI (Photo by FABIO MUZZI / AFP)
Pisa’s original cathedral dome was supported on Islamic-style squinches and slender pointed-arch windows, while the engineering challenges of the tower would have required advanced geometrical knowledge – the famous lean is the result of subsidence, not faulty construction.
Advanced geometrical knowledge
More proof of Arab involvement in churchbuilding comes in the Arabic numerals, with their distinctive cursive shapes, carved as assembly marks, found by chance in the roof timbers at Salisbury Cathedral (1220s) during a dendrochronology study sponsored by English Heritage. They were also an accidental find, carved as position markers on the stone sculptures, on the famous Wells Cathedral West Front (1175).
Since English craftsmen at that time could only manage the simple straight lines of Roman numerals, and Arabic numerals did not enter general use in Britain till several centuries later in the 1500s, the carpenters and masons employing them as early as the 12th and 13th centuries were clearly highly educated foreigners, brought in by wealthy bishops and abbots keen to sponsor the absolute top level of construction money could buy.
Cursive freehand Arabic numerals (4 and 5) carved by the original carpenters in the roof timbers of West Court Farm in Wiltshire, England dated to 1316. [photo by Diana Darke taken 6 June 2019
At Wells Cathedral, construction was halted when the funds allocated for the building were diverted, following the death of the bishop, to pay the huge litigation costs between rival claimants to his bishopric of a court case in Rome at the papal curia.
The masons, no longer being paid, simply marked up their final sculptures with Arabic numbers to indicate their correct niches on the West Front, then moved on to their next commission.
When the dispute was finally resolved 15 years later, local masons were the only ones on the scene to erect the sculptures.
To them, the Arabic symbols were just incomprehensible hieroglyphs, so they put them in the wrong niches, even adjusting the niches to make them fit.
Researchers in the most recent restoration have now established that, had the sculptures been put back in accordance with their original Arabic sequencing, they would have fitted perfectly.
Sophisticated society
The masons’ marks on display on the back wall of the Cordoba Mezquita are overwhelmingly Arab names written in Arabic script, showing how the 10th-century craftsmen were literate centuries ahead of their European Christian counterparts.
They were the products of a sophisticated society where learning was encouraged by the ruler and enjoyed by all, thanks to free education offered by mosque schools. In Christian Europe, only the clergy and a handful of the upper classes could read and write.
Cursive masons’ marks from the 10th century extension of the Cordoba Mezquita, found during restoration, now on display near the mihrab. [photo by Diana Darke taken October 2022]
Names in themselves can be misleading. In the town of Corleone, for example, inland from Palermo, there were Christians called Muhammad, Abdullah, Ahmad and Ali, living alongside Muslims with Greek names, who could pass for Sicilian Christians.
Donation records in Greek during the Norman period in Sicily use phrases like “Roger who was once called Ahmad”, showing how local Muslims adapted their names to fit in better to the new environment and new masters, just as foreign workers arriving in Britain today might adapt their names or be given nicknames that are easier to remember and pronounce. Jews have done the same thing across Europe and America for centuries.
When the names of craftsmen first started to appear in the Latin chronicles, like William of Sens, thought to have worked on Notre-Dame, and much vaunted for introducing six-part rib vaulting to England at Canterbury Cathedral in 1174-77, we cannot assume he was Christian. He might have been Muslim, or Mozarab (an Arabised Christian).
Either way, in order to have had the requisite mathematical and geometrical knowledge for rib vaulting at that time, he must have been schooled in the Islamic tradition.
Great pride
At the recent Notre-Dame rebuilding, a traditional carpentry company called Atelier de la Grande Oye, founded by French Muslim Paul Zahnd, was among those chosen to build the wooden frames supporting the new roof.
In an email to me, he expressed great pride at this honour, a pride likely to have been felt in equal measure by the top Muslim craftsmen working on Christian buildings in medieval times.
“As French Muslims,” he wrote, “we are very proud and happy … to communicate our beautiful crafts and our faith, which are of course perfectly compatible, feeding one another … we prayed all along the work, to bless the trees, our craft, our friendship, the Almighty who allowed us to be part of the project, to bless all the people who work with us, to celebrate the beauty and majesty of our creator … some of us are affirmed Muslims claiming our faith and our joy to rebuild a cathedral.”
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What an irony that across Europe, at the time of writing, there are increasingly loud calls from far-right parties to rid their country of immigrants, especially Muslims, in order to save the “purity” of their own race and culture, evidently unaware that their very civilisation was built on the superior skill of immigrants.
All the evidence has shown that it is not necessary to be a Christian in order to create Christian art, just as people of all faiths and none can enjoy and appreciate church music, church architecture, Islamic decorative styles and mosque architecture.
Muslims could put their expertise to use in churches, just as Christians could build mosques, and indeed have done, throughout history.
The important consideration was not their religion but their skill.
Diana Darke’s new book Islamesque: The Forgotten Craftsmen Who Built Europe’s Medieval Monuments, was published on 21 November 2024, as a sister volume to her earlier Stealing from the Saracens (2020).
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
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Diana Darke is a Middle East cultural expert with special focus on Syria. A graduate in Arabic from Oxford University, she has spent over 30 years specialising in the Middle East and Turkey, working for both government and commercial sectors. She is the author of several books on Turkey, including Eastern Turkey (2014) and The Ottomans (2022) as well as on Middle East society, including My House in Damascus: An Inside View of the Syrian Crisis (2016), The Merchant of Syria (2018), a socio-economic history and “Stealing from the Saracens: How Islamic Architecture Shaped Europe” (2020).
As part of its efforts to build bridges of communication and dialogue with countries and cultures of the world, the Emirate of Sharjah showcased an aspect of its cultural history throughout ancient times in the Italian capital, Rome.
The emirate revealed evidence proving its historical presence as a major commercial and cultural centre on the Spice Route, as well as even older remnants such as Acheulean stone tools from 500,000 years ago and evidence of human migration dating back 210,000 years.
On the sidelines of the exhibition titled ‘From Sharjah to Rome: Along the Spice Route’, organised by Sharjah Archaeology Authority at Rome’s iconic Colosseum, the Department of Government Relations (DGR) in Sharjah hosted a Gala dinner in the presence of Sheikha Bodour bint Sultan Al Qasimi, Chairperson of the Sharjah Investment and Development Authority (Shurooq), and Sheikh Fahim Al Qasimi, Chairman of DGR, alongside prominent diplomatic figures and representatives from Italian and Emirati cultural and academic institutions.
Sheikha Bodour Al Qasimi stressed that the exhibition was a celebration of Sharjah’s historical and cultural heritage.
She said, “Sharjah’s story is one of human connection—of cultures, ideas, and histories interwoven through centuries of trade and exchange. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Al Faya, a site so historically important it’s on the UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List. But beyond the stunning artefacts, this exhibition is an invitation to understand the depth of our shared heritage. By surfacing Sharjah’s role as a vital waypoint on the Spice Route, we reaffirm the value of protecting our cultural legacy while strengthening the ties that bind us over geography and time.”
Sheikh Fahim Al Qasimi, in his welcome address, highlighted the exhibition’s role in enhancing cultural and diplomatic ties between Sharjah and Rome. He said, “The exhibition ‘From Sharjah to Rome: Along the Spice Route’ is more than a retrospective of historical milestones. It is a testament to the power of shared heritage in connecting civilisations. By hosting this event in the heart of Rome, we bring Sharjah’s vision to life by preserving human heritage and presenting it in a contemporary context that strengthens cross-cultural understanding.”
The DGR Chairman added, “Culture is not only a reflection of the past but a foundation for shaping the future. Today, we showcase a tangible example of how heritage can be leveraged to foster dialogue and strengthen cultural and diplomatic relationships.”
As part of the cultural seminar, Issa Yousif, Director General of the Sharjah Archaeology Authority, delivered a lecture titled “Unearthing a shared archaeological heritage,” where he explored Sharjah’s historical role as a major trade and cultural centre in ancient times.
He detailed the emirate’s strategic position along the Spice Route, where caravans and merchant ships transported valuable goods from the Arabian Peninsula to Roman ports in the Mediterranean. Yousif also reaffirmed the Authority’s commitment to preserving Sharjah’s historical legacy through research and studies that promote mutual cultural understanding.
Sharjah’s deep-rooted history took centre stage in Rome through a presentation by Kholoud Al Hooli Al Suwaidi, Director of the Tangible Cultural Heritage Department at the Sharjah Archaeology Authority. In her talk, ‘Sharjah’s Cultural Legacy,’ she explored the emirate’s rich archaeological heritage, particularly discoveries from its central region.
She highlighted key sites, including the Suhaila Archaeological Site, where Acheulean stone tools dating back 500,000 years were uncovered, and Al Faya, a site containing evidence of human migration from 210,000 years ago that is currently considered for UNESCO World Heritage status.
She stressed that Sharjah’s commitment to cultural preservation is evident in the six archaeological sites on UNESCO’s Tentative List. These include rock art sites in Khatm Al Melaha and Khorfakkan, dating back 7,000 years, Wadi Al Helo, a significant centre for copper production during the Bronze Age, and Mleiha, a major pre-Islamic trade hub.
Meanwhile, the exhibition provided attendees with a rare opportunity to explore Sharjah’s historical significance as a key centre of trade and culture along the ancient Spice Route. Through artefacts, interactive digital media, and visual presentations, visitors gained deeper insight into the emirate’s strategic geographical and cultural role throughout history.
179 participants from 32 Islamic countries to compete, promote moderate Islamic values.
The 10th International Military Qur’an Memorization Competition launched on Saturday in Makkah, attracting 179 participants from 32 countries.
Organized by the General Administration of Religious Affairs of the Armed Forces under the patronage of Defense Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman, the event promotes the significance of the Qur’an, encourages its memorization, and highlights Saudi Arabia’s role in serving Islam’s holy book and as the custodian of Islam’s holiest sites.
The competition features six categories: full Qur’an memorization; 20-part, 10-part, five-part, and three-part memorization; and a special category for recitation and tajweed (proper pronunciation).
Parallel activities include a Qur’anic forum for religious affairs directors and imams, showcasing Saudi Arabia’s efforts in Qur’an printing, translation, and distribution.
The forum also discusses the Qur’an’s moral values, the Kingdom’s contributions through its ministries, and the impact of tajweed on understanding the Qur’an.
Additionally, the General Administration of Religious Affairs offers training programs for religious affairs personnel across the armed forces, focusing on Qur’anic teaching methods and enhancing the skills of instructors and competition judges.
Maj. Gen. Mesfer Al-Issa, director of the General Administration of Religious Affairs and competition supervisor, described the event as a significant initiative to honor the Qur’an.
Al-Issa emphasized the Kingdom’s commitment to hosting this event, reflecting the leadership’s dedication to serving the Qur’an.
In an interview with Arab News, he highlighted the event’s profound impact on participants, especially as it takes place in the holy cities of Makkah and Madinah.
Al-Issa said that the Qur’an guides soldiers, shaping their character and values, and encouraging psychological, behavioral, and spiritual stability.
Soldiers grounded in the Qur’an and Sunnah are more balanced and resilient, contributing to the development of morally and spiritually strong armed forces, he said.
The 14-day event will include 10 days in Makkah before moving to Madinah for four days, where participants will visit the Prophet’s Mosque and other Islamic landmarks.
Judges, including imams from the Two Holy Mosques and Qur’anic scholars, use an advanced electronic evaluation system called “Insaf” (Fairness) for transparent scoring.
Contestants receive immediate feedback on memorization, pronunciation, tajweed, and error rates.
Al-Issa said that soldiers are selected through year-long national competitions to identify top military memorizers.
The competition also serves as a platform for military personnel from Islamic nations to promote moderate Islamic values and a proper understanding of the Qur’an through scientific forums.
Al-Issa said that the competition strengthens the Qur’an’s role in Islamic armed forces, supporting efforts to memorize, recite, and reflect on its teachings.
This helps build a generation of soldiers rooted in Islamic knowledge and guided by noble values, he added.
source/content: arabnews.com (headline edited)
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Contestants arrive to participate in the 10th International Military Qur’an Memorization Competition in Makkah.
Imagine owning a camera so powerful it can take freeze-frame photographs of a moving electron – an object traveling so fast it could circle the Earth many times in a matter of a second. Researchers at the University of Arizona have developed the world’s fastest electron microscope that can do just that.
They believe their work will lead to groundbreaking advancements in physics, chemistry, bioengineering, materials sciences and more.
“When you get the latest version of a smartphone, it comes with a better camera,” said Mohammed Hassan, associate professor of physics and optical sciences. “This transmission electron microscope is like a very powerful camera in the latest version of smart phones; it allows us to take pictures of things we were not able to see before – like electrons. With this microscope, we hope the scientific community can understand the quantum physics behind how an electron behaves and how an electron moves.”
Hassan led a team of researchers in the departments of physics and optical sciences that published the research article “Attosecond electron microscopy and diffraction” in the Science Advances journal. Hassan worked alongside Nikolay Golubev, assistant professor of physics; Dandan Hui, co-lead author and former research associate in optics and physics who now works at the Xi’an Institute of Optics and Precision Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences; Husain Alqattan, co-lead author, U of A alumnus and assistant professor of physics at Kuwait University; and Mohamed Sennary, a graduate student studying optics and physics.
A transmission electron microscope is a tool used by scientists and researchers to magnify objects up to millions of times their actual size in order to see details too small for a traditional light microscope to detect. Instead of using visible light, a transmission electron microscope directs beams of electrons through whatever sample is being studied. The interaction between the electrons and the sample is captured by lenses and detected by a camera sensor in order to generate detailed images of the sample.
Ultrafast electron microscopes using these principles were first developed in the 2000’s and use a laser to generate pulsed beams of electrons. This technique greatly increases a microscope’s temporal resolution – its ability to measure and observe changes in a sample over time. In these ultrafast microscopes, instead of relying on the speed of a camera’s shutter to dictate image quality, the resolution of a transmission electron microscope is determined by the duration of electron pulses.
The faster the pulse, the better the image.
Ultrafast electron microscopes previously operated by emitting a train of electron pulses at speeds of a few attoseconds. An attosecond is one quintillionth of a second. Pulses at these speeds create a series of images, like frames in a movie – but scientists were still missing the reactions and changes in an electron that takes place in between those frames as it evolves in real time. In order to see an electron frozen in place, U of A researchers, for the first time, generated a single attosecond electron pulse, which is as fast as electrons moves, thereby enhancing the microscope’s temporal resolution, like a high-speed camera capturing movements that would otherwise be invisible.
Hassan and his colleagues based their work on the Nobel Prize-winning accomplishments of Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz and Anne L’Huilliere, who won the Novel Prize in Physics in 2023 after generating the first extreme ultraviolet radiation pulse so short it could be measured in attoseconds.
Using that work as a steppingstone, U of A researchers developed a microscope in which a powerful laser is split and converted into two parts – a very fast electron pulse and two ultra-short light pulses. The first light pulse, known as the pump pulse, feeds energy into a sample and causes electrons to move or undergo other rapid changes. The second light pulse, also called the “optical gating pulse” acts like a gate by creating a brief window of time in which the gated, single attosecond electron pulse is generated. The speed of the gating pulse therefore dictates the resolution of the image. By carefully synchronizing the two pulses, researchers control when the electron pulses probe the sample to observe ultrafast processes at the atomic level.
“The improvement of the temporal resolution inside of electron microscopes has been long anticipated and the focus of many research groups – because we all want to see the electron motion,” Hassan said. “These movements happen in attoseconds. But now, for the first time, we are able to attain attosecond temporal resolution with our electron transmission microscope – and we coined it ‘attomicroscopy.’ For the first time, we can see pieces of the electron in motion.”
source/content: eurekaalert.org / University of Arizona / (headline edited)
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Mohammed Hassan, associate professor of physics and optical sciences, let a group of researchers in developing the first transmission electron microscope powerful enough to capture images of electrons in motion.
Making history again! Egyptian heart surgeon Sir Magdi Yacoub innovates valves that grow naturally in body.
This pioneering innovation envisions the development of biological heart valves that can grow and be accommodated naturally within the human body. This opens the door to a new era in heart disease treatment.
The prospect of heart valves naturally expanding within the body, a concept once confined to science fiction, is now on the brink of realization, thanks to the remarkable discovery spearheaded by renowned heart surgeon Professor Sir Magdi Yacoub.
While the initial study documenting this breakthrough was unveiled in Nature in 2023, recent media coverage has underscored its practical implications.
Esteemed publications like The Times have pinpointed this cutting-edge innovation’s profound impact on biomedical science and medical engineering. They have recognized it as a monumental leap in the realm of healthcare.
On Monday, Dr. Yacoub discussed the latest developments in this field with Egyptian talk show host Amr Adib.
He explained how his team has engineered temporary heart valve scaffolds composed of surgically implanted fibres into the body.
These scaffolds gradually disintegrate over time, leaving behind a living, fully functional valve crafted from the patient’s tissues, a testament to the marvels of modern medical ingenuity.
My book Arab Agreements and Disagreements depicts the important role of Abdel Khalek Hassouna, the late secretary general of the Arab League (AL), in reaching agreements and settling significant disagreements between the organization’s members throughout its history.
The book alsoexplores the background of Abdel Khalek Hassouna’s role as the AL secretary general and the organization’s challenges during his mandate.
Writing this book, I relied on various sources, including the archives of the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Arab League, which provided me with valuable published and unpublished documents on the events related to that period.
Since my father had not published his own biography, a series of dialogues I had conducted with him over the years provided valuable material on his role and achievements in his various positions.
The book, published in Arabic by Dar El-Shorouk, describes the interesting and diverse positions my late father held during his life.
He was one of the first Egyptian diplomats to join the Foreign Ministry, which was established in 1922. After that, he served as the governor of Alexandria during the Second World War.
Later, he occupied several positions as the minister of social affairs, minister of education, and minister of foreign affairs before being unanimously elected by all the Arab States as the secretary general of the Arab League for twenty years, from 1952 to 1972.
The book addresses his role in all those positions.
Moreover, it highlights his AL role, which contributed to the independence of the Maghreb and Gulf countries. It also supported the Palestinian right to self-determination and the creation of an independent sovereign state.
A whole chapter in the book describes in detail the crises that broke out between the AL members during that period.
Therefore, it refers to the border crisis between Egypt and Sudan over the Halayeb and Shalatine regions in 1958, the Lebanese crisis’ regional and international implications in 1958, and the crisis between Egypt and Syria over the breaking up of their union in 1961.
It also discusses the 1961 Kuwait crisis, which resulted from Iraq’s threat to its independence, the 1963 border crisis between Morocco and Algeria, the 1972 crisis between northern and southern Yemen, and the 1965 crisis between the Arab states and West Germany over the latter’s substantial assistance to Israel.
In all those instances, my father deployed all efforts toward settling the crises under the league’s umbrella rather than allowing outside means of settlements to escalate them.
I sincerely hope the book will contribute to a better understanding of Egyptian diplomacy’s role and achievements as one of the Third World’s first active diplomacies after World War I and as a co-founder of various international and regional organizations.
In addition, the book highlights the history of the Arab League as the first regional organization established in the post-World War II international order.
Like other organizations, the league has suffered from various problems, including a lack of political will among its members and the diversity of their interests. However, the book reaffirms its importance in light of the Middle East’s current challenges.
Thus, the AL should continue to actively coordinate its members’ political positions, promote their economic integration, preserve their Arab identity, protect their national security, and broadly achieve their common interests.
Certainly, I am grateful that this book on my father’s long career has been well-received and praised by the media, academia, and all those interested in the history of our region.
Oman Across Ages Museum in Manah has been honoured with one of the world’s most prestigious architecture awards – the Prix Versailles World Titles.
The museum received the ‘Special Prize for an Exterior’, while the ‘Special Prize for an Interior’ was awarded to the Smritivan Earthquake Museum in Bhuj, India. The grand prize, the Prix Versailles, went to the Simose Art Museum in Otake, Japan.
Granted annually at Unesco headquarters in Paris since 2015, the Prix Versailles celebrates architectural excellence by showcasing the finest contemporary achievements worldwide.
In June, for the first time, Prix Versailles unveiled its World’s Most Beautiful Museums List for 2024, featuring seven newly opened or reopened museums that embody creativity, local heritage, and ecological efficiency.
Among the listed museums was Oman Across Ages Museum, recognised for its exceptional impact on its surroundings. Other shortlisted museums included the A4 Art Museum in Chengdu, China; Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza, Egypt; Paleis Het Loo in Apeldoorn, Netherlands; and the Polish History Museum in Warsaw, Poland.
This year’s ceremony was held on December 2, celebrating 70 of the ‘World’s Most Beautiful’ achievements across eight categories: Museums, Hotels, Restaurants, Emporiums, Airports, Campuses, Passenger Stations, and Sports.
This year’s finalists were selected through a rigorous process that reviewed new and recently opened sites across 31 nations. The 2024 World Jury, chaired by Benjamin Millepied, awarded three World Titles in each category.
Commenting on the event, Millepied said, “Architecture has the ability to display creative and stylistic diversity with great force. That diversity is the sign that the attention given to nature, togetherness, and different forms of expertise can help an environment emerge – one that is both receptive to expression and capable of harmony. Such an assembly of actors from every background reminds us of culture’s unique talent for leading humankind into dialogue.”
The recognition affirms Oman Across Ages Museum’s standing as a cultural and architectural beacon, reflecting the nation’s commitment to preserving heritage while embracing modernity.
