THE GRUDGING URBANIST
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.
Faujdarhat Cadet College / 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.
Planning for Dhaka's new night
Dhaka should be readied for a nighttime culture that offers a potpourri of entertainment options to people.
Has Dhaka become a status city?
The status city often serves the privileged, while the huddling masses eke out a minimal existence
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.
Is there an architecture for marginal communities?
Our experience of designing Brac regional offices across rural Bangladesh.
Muzharul Islam’s Birth Centenary / 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.
The Louis Kahn mystique: 20 years after ‘My Architect’
The legend of Louis Kahn remains strong.
Padma Bridge is a metaphorical countermovement
Recently, on a wintry afternoon, I went to see the Padma Bridge.
A time travel to Dhaka University’s 2034 convocation
It was Titian Matin’s first return to his native Bangladesh after he won the Nobel Prize in economics for his study of the reciprocal relationship between urban density and economic geography.
Understanding a freedom fighter’s prison letters
Imprisoned in various torture chambers by the Pakistan Army during Bangladesh’s Liberation War in 1971, Mohiuddin Ahmed, MP, wrote numerous letters to his wife, describing the systemic cruelties of his oppressors.
Is smart density the way forward for Bangladesh?
Going around in Dhaka could be overwhelming. The city seems overburdened with the impossible weight of people, buildings, vehicles, rickshaws, noise, carbon emission, and nonstop activities.
Tribute to a true admirer of Bangladesh
Mary Frances Dunham (MFD) arrived in Dhaka on a wintry day in November of 1960. From the window of her room at Hotel Shahbagh, she found ample opportunities to observe the city.
The delicate work of decolonising knowledge
In recent years, the idea of “decolonising knowledge” (DK)—that knowledge creation must be liberated from West-centric and racialised views of the world—has become a bottom-up intellectual movement in Western academia.
Could public consciousness of history be a measure of social progress?
For quite some time now, people have been discussing if there are more on-the-ground, inclusive ways to measure a country’s progress, rather than supra-quantitative metrics like GDP.
Chattogram desperately needs guardian angels
It is impossible these days to not notice Chattogram’s spectacular urban decline. Go around the port city and you will only experience a place plagued by anemia, chaos, a collective greed to commercialise every open space, and overall, a curious lack of aspiration.
The sociology of eco-grief: Saving Suhrawardy Udyan
Eight years ago, in May, a large crowd staged a sit-in at Gezi Park, next to Taksim Square, Istanbul’s bustling public plaza in the downtown of its European side.
Memories, cultural imaginations and Dhaka
How do cities like Dhaka in the throes of frenzied development deal with memories and literary depictions in the process of their transformations?