2020 marks 100 years since the birth of one of Sri Lanka’s, if not South Asia’s, most renowned architects, Geoffrey Bawa. In honour of this landmark centenary, the Geoffrey Bawa Trust has held a variety of events, with the 17th Annual Geoffrey Bawa Memorial Lecture being originally designed to be the concluding event of the centenary celebrations.
The Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted plans to celebrate Bawa’s centenary. Adjusting to the pandemic, this year’s Annual Geoffrey Bawa Memorial Lecture was held in partnership with MTV, with the memorial lecture being broadcast for the very first time on 25 July.
Tabassum received the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 2016 for her project Bait Ur Rouf Mosque in Dhaka, Bangladesh. She also designed the Independence Monument of Bangladesh and the Museum of Independence during her partnership with Kashef Chowdhury of Urbana.
Tabassum graduated from the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET). She is the Academic Director of the Bengal Institute for Architecture, Landscapes, and Settlements. She has taught architectural design in BRAC University as a visiting faculty member since 2005. She taught advanced design studio as a visiting professor at the University of Texas at Arlington in fall 2015. Currently, she is teaching architectural design at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design.
During the lecture, Tabassam spoke of how Geoffrey Bawa was one of the subcontinental elders in architecture who inspired her as a student and professional architect.
Tabassum explained the context of Bangladesh in terms of geography, river, and water-body distribution and how it differs from other countries, and how this, in turn, affects how Bangladeshi communities live and work in the spaces they use on a daily basis. In areas of Bangladesh that are heavily laced with various rivers and other water bodies, the tides and flows of rivers result in land being a less-than-permanent concept. While working on an exhibit for the Sharjah Architecture Triennial, Tabassum researched how land evolved in this setting. The flow of the rivers, combined with erosion and other factors, means that there is a fairly frequent shifting of dry and wet land.
Adapting to this, Bangladeshi architecture in areas like this have evolved to create houses that can be dismantled in a number of hours and then reconstructed on safer ground. The houses are built with flat-pack structure concepts at their cores to allow for this almost-nomadic lifestyle.
Land as a permanent concept was introduced during colonisation, as a way of generating revenue through the lease of land for the East India Company. Many Bangladeshis hold deeds to land that is currently submerged or might be in future. Even when a plot of land is submerged, families hold on to these deeds for when these lands might once again become habitable so they can keep their original claim to it. This can sometimes take generations or not happen at all.
In the Bangladeshi delta, where land is more stable and fertile, a greatly agrarian culture has developed, and the architectural vernacular is decidedly different from the flat-pack structures you find in other parts of Bangladesh.
The delta’s vernacular construction is defined by mud-walled structures with thatched roofs. Ponds play a part in the layout and use of spaces in the delta, with ponds being dug into the land, and the soil is used to create mounds on which to build homes. Bangladeshi culture, similar to Sri Lankan culture, also centralises on courtyards with much of life lived outdoors.
Tabassum shared how some of her key projects have come together and how she builds in her philosophies of local materials and local labour and talent to build cohesive buildings and spaces that complement the Bangladeshi way of life. One such project, the $ 2,000 home, was even made into a book that was published by the Harvard University Graduate School of Design.
Tabassum also spoke about the importance of building communities, how she builds this into her work, and how he feels this is a basic responsibility that all professionals, particularly architects, have towards their communities.
The 17th Annual Geoffrey Bawa Memorial Lecture can be viewed in its entirety on the Geoffrey Bawa Trust’s YouTube channel.