Tickets Alert: Tours of the Aga Khan Centre in King’s Cross
An unassuming white building behind King’s Cross conceals a wonderful interior and rooftop garden. This is the Aga Khan Centre, opened in 2018 to house several divisions of the Shi‘a Ismaili charity and its design incorporates a collection of gardens, courtyards and terraces all based on Islamic principles.
It’s also open for tours. For free.
While it looks like a conventional office block from the outside, it’s inside that the real action takes place. A central floor-to-ceiling courtyard space dominates, but what really marks the building out at the many gardens dotted around the outside and on the roof.
What’s also delightful about the building is the attention to detail, from the careful use of patterns in the decoration of both shade rooms, which remind people of the building’s origins, to the furniture dotted around the library spaces. Even the signs for the toilets seem to have been custom-designed when an off-the-shelf sign would have been adequate.
Tours of the interior of the building and its roof gardens are released in batches, and are currently available for most Thursdays and Saturdays up to the end of January 2025.
You can book a free tour here.
Hi Ian! Thanks for featuring us! I run the tours programme at the Aga Khan Centre and I know tours are pretty booked up at the moment but there will be February and March ones available from Tuesday! ?
Hello Emily, my friend and myself in this Aga Khan Centre tour…are there and thursfay left for this year…if not we shall book for next year. Thanks.Ann
Hi Emily, am I right in thinking no space this year for Aga Khan visit. If you can let me know I can tell my friend & we can choose dates for next year. Many thanks Ann