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
December 24, 2016
December 24, 2016

The peculiar global invisibility of 1971

A few years ago, I attended a book launch event for Gary Bass's The Blood Telegram (2013) at the Martin Luther King Jr.

December 21, 2016
December 21, 2016

A monument of Bangladesh and the world

The month of December in Bangladesh is a time of remembrance and reflection. The country's independence in that month in 1971 was followed by a yearning to memorialise the heroism and sacrifice of the freedom fighters.

August 27, 2016
August 27, 2016

Can city design prevent terrorist attacks?

This is one of those questions with a zillion possible answers. An insightful consideration of the question, however, might begin by making a critical distinction between “stopping” and “reducing.” City design alone can't stop terrorism. Terror can strike any city, any time. Recent examples include Istanbul, Paris, Orlando, and Dhaka, among other cities. Terrorists often figure out new ways of breaching security barriers.

July 10, 2016
July 10, 2016

The Banality of Cruelty

As we continue to mourn the helpless victims of the terrorist attack at Holey Artisan Bakery in Gulshan, I keep looking at

June 9, 2016
June 9, 2016

Armenians in Dhaka

I am intrigued by the common history of massacre that Armenians and Bangladeshis share, and how this history, in many ways, shapes the national personality of these two peoples. More fascinating yet that Dhaka presents a robust Armenian history.

January 29, 2016
January 29, 2016

Goodbye master planning - Hello bottom-up urbanism

Cities are by nature messy. Unless they are Brasilia, Chandigarh or Myanmar's gaudy new capital Naypyidaw, cities grow organically...

January 2, 2016
January 2, 2016

Splitting the capital, saving the country

The idea of dividing the Bangladesh capital into two cities should no longer be considered radical. Indeed, we should begin to incubate this idea in our political and administrative heads.

August 22, 2015
August 22, 2015

Rethinking the roots of Dhaka's traffic congestion

The sooner we realize that Dhaka's traffic congestion is not a problem of transportation engineering alone the better. This is also a problem of culture. It is much more than a result of broken bureaucracy, inadequate infrastructure, and ad-hoc planning.

June 11, 2015
June 11, 2015

A doctor with a mission

After a hot day in May 2014, it was well past midnight when Aleya Begum brought her two-day-old baby boy to the Chittagong Medical College Hospital (CMCH).

April 28, 2015
April 28, 2015

Why mayors are crucial for the future

The mayoral elections in Dhaka and Chittagong have generated two types of interest.

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