Header: Iwan Baan
The Ismaili Center, Houston has been formally inaugurated by Mayor John Whitmire in the presence of His Highness Prince Rahim Aga Khan V, the Imam (spiritual leader) of the world’s Shia Ismaili Muslims, on Thursday, 6 November 2025. The opening ceremony was attended by civic and cultural leaders from Houston and beyond, as well as leaders and supporters from the Ismaili community from around the world. The Center is the U.S.’ first Ismaili civic and cultural complex dedicated to dialogue, culture, and shared human values.
Set on 11 acres overlooking Buffalo Bayou Park, this achievement in architecture and landscape architecture marks a historic milestone for the Ismaili community and Houston’s dynamic cultural landscape. The Ismaili Center, Houston has been thoughtfully designed to serve both as a place of religious congregation for the Ismaili community and a welcoming space for the community at large. The Center’s facilities will be accessible for a wide range of public programming, community use, and collaborative initiatives.
Situated prominently at the intersection of Allen Parkway and Montrose Boulevard, along the rapidly developing Allen Parkway corridor overlooking Buffalo Bayou Park, the Center fulfils a long-held vision of His Highness Prince Karim Aga Khan IV (1936–2025), which began to unfold with the 2006 purchase of the land and was brought to life under the leadership of his son and successor, His Highness Prince Rahim Aga Khan V.
Comprising over nine acres of gardens and courtyards, the site unfolds around the Center’s luminous main structure, framed by tree-lined promenades, shaded terraces, and a series of tranquil water features, including a grand reflecting fountain at the primary entry. Together, the building and landscape form a serene civic sanctuary that embodies the Ismaili ethos of harmony between people, place, and nature.
“The relationships between Ismailis and the communities in which they live have always been grounded in understanding and common purpose. Today, we honour that tradition, extending the hand of friendship to all, regardless of background or faith. This building may be called an Ismaili Center, but it is not here for Ismailis only. It is for all Houstonians to use; a place open to all who seek knowledge, reflection, and dialogue.”
His Highness Prince Rahim Aga Khan V.
A global ethos rooted in local context
Featuring a 150,000-square-foot, five-story structure designed by internationally renowned architect Farshid Moussavi, founder of London-based Farshid Moussavi Architecture, with landscape architecture by Thomas Woltz of Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects, the Ismaili Center is the first in the United States and the seventh worldwide: London (1985), Vancouver (1985), Lisbon (1998), Dubai (2008), Dushanbe (2009), and Toronto (2014).
The project was realised in collaboration with AKT II (structural, civil, geotechnical, bioclimatic, and facade engineer), DLR Group (architect and engineer of record), and McCarthy (contractor). The team emphasised a holistic, client-led process in which architecture, engineering, landscape, and construction advanced together, minimising surprises and enabling high craft.
The Center is poised to become a major resource for Houston’s nonprofit and cultural sectors, offering access to spaces for meetings, conferences, lectures, performances, and events. Welcome events for community partners and neighbours will take place on December 12 and 13, with additional details set to be shared in the coming weeks.
A space for reflection, dialogue, and discovery
Ismaili Centers around the world serve as ambassadorial buildings, welcoming people of all backgrounds to explore the intersections of faith, culture, and civic life. Each embodies the Ismaili community’s commitment to peaceful pluralism, intellectual engagement, and shared humanity, offering a place for spiritual reflection, cultural exchange, and public dialogue.
The Ismaili Center, Houston continues this tradition, envisioned as a living home for the mind and spirit: a place where programmes in education, art, music, performance, and conversation come together to foster understanding among people of all backgrounds.
Within its walls, visitors will find permanent and rotating art exhibitions, a black box theatre, function rooms, a café, administrative offices, classrooms, and a Jamatkhana (prayer hall for Ismaili Muslims) that anchors the complex in devotion and community. In keeping with the Ismaili ethic of service, the Center is staffed largely by volunteers.
By welcoming organisations that advance the common good, from education and the arts to public health, environmental awareness, and social equity, the Ismaili Center, Houston will be a place of connection, learning, and openness, nurturing the exchange of ideas that strengthens the fabric of civic life.
“The City of Houston is proud to welcome the Ismaili Center, a place where people from every background can come together in dialogue, understanding, and learning. When I visited the site during construction, I could already see what it would mean for our city. Now that it’s complete, it stands as a new monument along the Allen Parkway corridor and a beacon of light surrounded by some of our most treasured neighbourhoods and cultural institutions. The Ismaili Center truly reflects the best of Houston’s spirit: our diversity, our compassion, and our commitment to community. It’s a place that invites all Houstonians to come together and celebrate what connects us.”
Mayor Whitmire.
Architectural dialogue between tradition and modernity
Rather than replicate historical styles, the architecture of the Ismaili Center, Houston translates enduring ideas from across the Muslim world: structure as legible order, ornament as human scale, repetition as unity, and light as material – through contemporary craft. Inspiration from Persian domestic and palace traditions is evident in the verandas (eivans) and in perforated stone screens that temper light and privacy. Large geometric moves resolve into intimate detail, yielding spaces that feel clear, calm, and timeless, rather than trend-driven.
Shaped by Houston’s climate and the site’s geography, the Center choreographs a porous sequence of eivans (“verandas” in Persian) and atria that pair shaded outdoor rooms with luminous interiors. These covered thresholds invite year-round movement between inside and out and remain open for informal use beyond scheduled programmes, reinforcing the Center’s civic mission as a daily destination for gathering, reflection, and exchange.
Materials were chosen for beauty, clarity, and a 100-year life. The exterior employs small, varied stone tiles that read as quiet massing from afar and refined ornament up close. Inside, a restrained palette featuring silk-laminated glass, steel, wood panelling, and ultra-high-performance concrete elevates geometry over finish. Screens shift from triangular apertures to subtle scallops to widen seated views while maintaining structural integrity. Above, an oculus crowns the central atrium opposite the Jamatkhana (prayer hall) doors, aligning sky and sanctuary. Sited at the property’s highest point above the 500-year floodplain, the building is protected, and the underground parking garage is designed to take on water when necessary.
Landscape of reflection and resilience
For Woltz, the Ismaili Center, Houston represents the culmination of more than a decade of research into how the landscapes of the Muslim world can find new relevance in the 21st century. The Ismaili Center, Houston marks Nelson Byrd Woltz’s fourth project completed for the Aga Khan Development Network. When His Highness Prince Karim Aga Khan IV engaged the firm in 2011, he tasked Woltz and his team with a yearlong study across historic sites in Spain, Egypt, and India to explore the spatial, sensory, and cultural dimensions of Islamic gardens, such as the sound of water, the scale of walls, the rhythm of geometry, and the symbolism of enclosures. The insights from this study informed the firm’s approach to subsequent projects, including the Ismaili Center, Houston. Drawing on those lessons, Woltz approached the Ismaili Center in Houston as both a work of environmental engineering and a living expression of cultural continuity.
The site was selected for its gentle slope toward the Buffalo Bayou, a topography that echoes ancient Persian gardens stepping down to a river. Woltz’s design transforms this terrain into a resilient system of terraced lawns, reflecting basins, and flood-adaptive gardens, capable of withstanding Houston’s 500-year storm events.
Working with Professor Hanif Kara of London-based structural engineering firm AKT II, the team embedded a subtle geometric grid through both building and landscape, ensuring that every path, fountain, and tree aligns in quiet visual harmony to follow ancient traditions of eastern cultures. Enclosed by sound-mitigating garden walls soon to be covered in creeping fig, the Center forms a tranquil enclave shielded from the city yet deeply connected to its ecology.
Beyond its aesthetic and environmental ambitions, the landscape embodies the Ismaili ethos of community, stewardship, and belonging. Woltz conceived the plantings as a “transect of Texas”, beginning with desert species like paddle cactus and agave and moving through the prairie to the Gulf Coast, mirroring the adaptability of the Ismaili people in new homelands. Designed not as a static garden but as a living, evolving ecosystem, the site will mature over time. “It’s not just about beauty,” Woltz notes. “It’s about creating a place that brings people together in calm and reflection, a landscape of connection, resilience, and care.”
