An aerial view of the future Ismaili Center Houston indicates its 11-acre site near Buffalo Bayou and downtown.
Courtesy of Ismaili Council
A prime, vacant parcel near Houston’s Buffalo Bayou and sited just west of downtown is slated for the first Ismaili Center in the U.S., joining a series of six other such facilities operating around the world.
The 11-acre Houston tract, currently appraised at $30.3 million, was purchased in 2006 by the Aga Khan Foundation as the future site for the center. As mandated, its role is to be a place of peace, prayer, hope, humility and brotherhood, a project update says.
Long-planned, the Houston project recently entered the design phase following an international competition that netted London-based architect Farshid Moussavi in collaboration with Paul Westlake of DLR Group as architect of record and landscape architect Thomas L. Woltz of Nelson Byrd Woltz. NBW is also working on redevelopment of Houston’s Memorial Park and Rothko Chapel campus.
Built over the past four decades, previously completed Ismaili centers are located in London, Vancouver, Toronto, Lisbon, Dubai and Dushanbe.
In Houston, plans for the campus include spaces for social and cultural gatherings, intellectual engagement and reflection, and spiritual contemplation for the diverse Ismaili community — as well as the city’s multi-cultural one, thus “fostering an appreciation of pluralism,” the design team announcement says.
Although few project details have been released, the center in Houston is expected to include a Jamatkhana, which is a place for worship, with additional spaces to accommodate the center’s “ambassadorial” roles, meaning outreach, knowledge and fellowship between people of all faiths and walks of life.
A construction start has not been determined for the project, notes Omar Samji, a volunteer with the Ismaili Council in Houston.
The site slopes toward Buffalo Bayou, which has come out of its banks many times over the years, most recently during Hurricane Harvey.
While flooding from that 2017 storm did affect lower-elevations of the center’s site, Sanji says, it did not delay the project. Rather it provided useful data for planning flood management and mitigation and landscaping.