BASEL.- The S AM Swiss Architecture Museum is presenting the exhibition Bengal Stream: The Vibrant Architecture Scene of Bangladesh, curated by Niklaus Graber, Andreas Ruby and Viviane Ehrensberger.
With Bengal Stream S AM is the first museum worldwide to present an exhibition on Bangladesh’s architecture. In a chequered historical sequence of events, various trends have expressed themselves in different architectural ways, according to religious or socio-cultural developments. Nevertheless, many underlying motifs have held their ground in a typological sense for centuries and even represent a valid foundation for today's architectural trends. Modernism also used these as a basis on which to build, whereby the most important local protagonist was Muzharul Islam. It was also in keeping with his personal identity, situated between localism and internationalism, to bring international protagonists like Paul Rudolph, Stanley Tigerman and ultimately Louis I. Kahn to Bangladesh for important construction projects. In Bengal Stream, original drawings by Muzharul Islam are exhibited for the first time outside of his native Bangladesh.
The main focus of this exhibition is on contemporary positions. Many of today's protagonists were students, assistants or companions of Muzharul Islam and in recent decades they have formed an independent architecture scene that carries the societal and architectural concerns of their predecessors forwards in a contemporary way. Again and again, it is this loose group who, despite dynamic global pressure to develop, collectively stand up for architectural values and for an awareness of Bengali culture. The exhibition Bengal Stream brings together over 60 projects by established and emerging architects in Bangladesh. One of the most internationally prominent architectural photographers, Iwan Baan, was brought in to document the projects.
Today's Bangladesh has only existed as a politically independent country since 1971. On the one hand, it has its roots in centuries-old culture from the Indian subcontinent, yet at the same time, as a young nation, it is spurred on by a dynamic sense of departure. In the Western world, this country with around 160 million inhabitants usually only appears fleetingly in the daily press – and when it does, it is often in connection with negative headlines, such as catastrophic floods, environmental sins or working conditions in the textile industry.
This is precisely what makes it so important for its societal and economic successes from recent decades to be exhibited in the West. With idealism, engagement and optimism, large parts of the population (architects and urbanists in particular) are confronting the deficiencies. Not just the country's high risk of flooding due to climate change, but also its enormous population growth and associated rural depopulation present planners with new kinds of problems. Neoliberalism and the new world order are not making it any easier for this country to get out of the corner it finds itself in as a cheap production site, strategically well positioned at the interface between the Indian, Chinese and Southeast-Asian turbo-economies.
The multitude of difficult issues that are caused on a global level and must be addressed locally make the Bangladesh phenomenon a universal case study. The thinking of a previously small architecture nation could thus become a global model for architectural action. An ever-enlarging group of responsible-minded architects are acting in the interests of cultural identity and a contemporary approach to pending problems. One impressive aspect of the very active architectural debate is the fact that the architectural argument is constantly kept in mind. With inventive spatial approaches and innovative detailed solutions, it is being demonstrated that architecture as a discipline is able to provide relevant responses to urgent societal, economic and ecological issues.
THEMES OF THE EXHIBITION
The exhibition ‘Bengal Stream: The Vibrant Architecture Scene of Bangladesh’ focuses on three interweaving themes:
History: Tradition as the Humus of the Present
The area where today's Bangladesh is situated has been populated for millennia and is characterised by a wealth of cultural history. In a chequered historical sequence of events, various trends have expressed themselves in different architectural ways, according to religious or socio-cultural developments. Typological strands, from the Mogul period (16th to 18th century) to British colonial architecture (1757-1947), through to 20th-century modernism, are impressively demonstrated on the basis of schematic layout plans. In particular, the Bangladeshi architect and thinker Muzharul Islam (1923-2012) had a linking function in societal and architectural discourse. Firstly, in his work and teaching, he strived to mediate between tradition and the modern. Secondly, he managed to acknowledge locality and internationality to equal extents. As he had studied at Yale in the USA during the 1950s, it was also in keeping with his personal identity to bring international protagonists like Paul Rudolph, Stanley Tigerman and ultimately Louis I. Kahn to Bangladesh for important construction projects. Another key part of Muzharul Islam's legacy is the forming of the so-called Chetana Study Group, whose thoughts and actions have played a major role in helping to shape Bangladesh's contemporary architecture over the past decades.
Focus: Contemporary Positions
Many of today's protagonists were students, assistants or companions of Muzharul Islam and in recent decades they have formed an independent architecture scene that carries the societal and architectural concerns of their predecessors forwards in a contemporary way. Even though figures like Shamsul Wares, Nahas Khalil, Saif Ul Haque, Kashef Chowdhury, Eshan Khan and Marina Tabassum define individual focal points with their spatial statements usually made from brick and exposed concrete, they are acutely interconnected as a community in a lively professional exchange. Again and again, it is this loose group who, despite dynamic global pressure to develop, collectively stand up for architectural values and for an awareness of their own culture. In addition to their impressively built works, their teaching and mediation also constitute an integral part of this extraordinary commitment on different socially relevant levels. These developments are of global significance, in the sense that in nations confronted with sharply rising economic growth rates in a very short space of time, an exploitation of resources, minorities and the poor populace often ensues. Thanks to the architects, the quality of life experienced by the individual in mega-cities or the impoverished rural population remains in focus and is continually improved via scientific research.
Outlook: Architecture as Social Responsibility
To an increasing extent, architects are attending to the country's societal and climatic challenges. In this regard, their sphere of activity is widening, and is often based on cooperation with local and international NGOs. Collaborative projects in urban slums and rural areas are producing socially sustainable structures of high architectural quality. Architects are initiating and executing more and more such construction projects, like floating schools and hospitals, cyclone-proof emergency shelters, and flood-resistant settlements. Here, their commercial work is used as a means of cross-subsidising this commitment.
