Adnan Zillur Morshed

THE GRUDGING URBANIST

Adnan Zillur Morshed, PhD, is an architect, architectural historian, urbanist, and public intellectual. He is a professor of architecture and architectural history at the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC, and executive director of the Centre for Inclusive Architecture and Urbanism at BRAC University. Morshed received his Ph.D. and Master’s in architecture from MIT, and BArch from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, where he also taught. He was a 2018 TEDxFoggyBottom speaker at George Washington University. He is the author of multiple books; among them, Impossible Heights: Skyscrapers, Flight, and the Master Builder (University Minnesota Press, 2015), Oculus: A Decade of Insights into Bangladeshi Affairs (University Press Limited, 2012), DAC, Dhaka in 25 Buildings (Altrim Publishers, Barcelona, 2017), and River Rhapsody: A Museum of Rivers and Canals (BRAC University, 2018).

Shamsul Wares: A teacher who inspired generations of architects

Aristotle once said, “Those who know, do. Those who understand, teach.” Shamsul Wares understood, and hence taught.

6m ago

A post-Partition heritage campus worth preserving

FCC should not be viewed simply as one of the cadet colleges; it is a heritage campus that can be showcased to the world.

7m ago

Planning for Dhaka's new night

Dhaka should be readied for a nighttime culture that offers a potpourri of entertainment options to people.

7m ago

Has Dhaka become a status city?

The status city often serves the privileged, while the huddling masses eke out a minimal existence

11m ago

Is human civilisation at an inflection point?

Our brains are being reprogrammed to look for the easiest solutions to our most vexing social and political questions.

1y ago

Is there an architecture for marginal communities?

Our experience of designing Brac regional offices across rural Bangladesh.

1y ago

How to reclaim flyovers as people-centric ‘green’ infrastructure

Characterised by a culture of ad hocism, these valuable urban lands below elevated road infrastructures rarely reach their full potential.

1y ago

Forging a Bengali identity through modernist architecture

After completing his Bachelor of Architecture degree at the University of Oregon, Eugene, in June 1952, the 29-year-old Muzharul Islam (1923-2012) returned home to find a postcolonial Pakistan embroiled in acrimonious politics of national identity.

1y ago
May 26, 2023
May 26, 2023

Heatwaves, global warming, and the ethics of our cities

We must rethink how cities are planned, designed, and administered to combat the adverse effects of both the heat island problem and climate change.

March 31, 2023
March 31, 2023

What makes great research?

Research cannot flourish in an environment where critical enquiry is severely discouraged.

March 17, 2023
March 17, 2023

What makes a classroom great?

A great classroom is one that is conducive to learning.

March 11, 2023
March 11, 2023

Deciphering the student-learner

What makes a good student? A definitive answer to this question is difficult.

March 3, 2023
March 3, 2023

What makes a good teacher in the 21st century?

Today, the question of being a 'good teacher' generates a new vernacular.

February 10, 2023
February 10, 2023

A dangerous time for history

Governments are trying to control what could or could not be taught about their past.

December 31, 2022
December 31, 2022

Can the Metro Rail be a Great Equalizer?

A “new” type of urban mobility comes to fruition in the month of the country’s emancipation

December 16, 2022
December 16, 2022

Footpaths of Bangladesh: Our complicated relationship with walking

Walking, sadly, is not part of our shared value system, and there are many reasons behind this.

November 10, 2022
November 10, 2022

Researching Rural Transformation 2.0 in Bangladesh

We need new research methodologies to understand the complex nature of the rural change in Bangladesh in the last two decades.

October 31, 2022
October 31, 2022

Mid-sized cities are our new urban frontier

A resilient and adjustable urban development policy for mid-sized cities is necessary to decentralise Dhaka.