INFORMATION – June 5, 2019 Frankfurt/Main BENGAL STREAM The vibrant Architecture Scene of Bangladesh June 7, 2019 – October 20, 2019 Deutsches Architekturmuseum (DAM) Schaumainkai 43, Frankfurt am Main EXHIBITION OPENING: Thu, June 6, 2019, 7 p.m. PRESS CONFERENCE: Wed, June 5, 2019, 11 a.m. GUIDED TOURS: On Saturdays and Sundays 3 p.m. OPEN: Tue, Thu — Sun 11 a.m. — 6 p.m. \ Wed 11 a.m. — 8 p.m. \ Mon closed SOS Youth Village and Vocational Centre; Mirpur, Dhaka; Architect: C.A.P.E \ Raziul Ahsan © Iwan Baan ABOUT THE EXHIBITION 2 THE VIBRANT ARCHITECTURE SCENE OF BANGLADESH 3 SELECTED PROJECTS 6 ACCOMPANYING PROGRAM 10 PUBLICATION / IMPRINT 11 COMING SOON / CONTACT 13 PRESS INFORMATION page 1 Bengal Stream – The vibrant architecture of Bangladesch Frankfurt / Main, 05.06.2019 BANGLADESH’S ARCHITECTURAL LANDSCAPE IS MASALA (BENGALI: মাসালা) – AN INTOXICATING MIX OF CONTRASTS. An exhibition by the S AM Swiss Architecture Museum, produced in collaboration with the Bengal Institute for Architecture, Landscapes and Settlements, Dhaka. Curated by Niklaus Graber, Andreas Ruby and Viviane Ehrensberger. Only a few of us are likely to be familiar with current architectural developments in Bangladesh‘s tropical delta region. This area, blessed with cultural and scenic riches, has so far barely been present on the architectural world map, but that may change in the near future, due to excellent works emerging from a vibrant architecture movement. The output of this »Bengal Stream« is not just highly controversial in a spatial and architectural sense, it also bears witness to the high societal relevance of architecture as a discipline. Via local action, carefully developed from the country‘s specific history and geography, current trends in Bangladesh are taking on global significance. Participatory low-cost, environmental or social projects are often undertaken by the same designers who also get commissions from a growing middle class and from the urban high-end price segment. Although the protagonists among the generation of architects setting the agenda today have defined individual focal points with their projects, they are interconnected as a community by a lively professional exchange and higher-level objectives. Like an unrelenting tide, more and more players are helping this still-young profession to get established and supporting an awareness of the local culture without closing their minds to global influences. In the largest delta region on Earth, veined by thousands of rivers, people seem to be aware that every kind of living culture is a combination of the inherent and the foreign. Thus, Bangladesh‘s contemporary architecture movement follows in the footsteps of the grand master Muzharul Islam (1923-2012), whose original drawings are exhibited here for the first time outside his home country. Muzharul Islam strived to mediate between tradition and the modern, while absorbing the local and the international to equal extents in his architecture. It was in keeping with his personal understanding of intercultural dialogue to bring western protagonists to his homeland for important construction projects, such as his teacher Paul Rudolph and his college friend Stanley Tigerman, both of whom he met when studying architecture in the USA, and ultimately Louis I. Kahn. »Bengal Stream« does not present a romantically glorified view of Bangladesh‘s architectural development; instead, this exhibition has arisen from a wish to learn more about the architectural approach to substantial questions: What does it take to allow good architectural spaces to emerge? What materials make sense where and for which purposes? How can these have an effect? How can natural illumination and ventilation provide added value, not just in an economic sense, but also in terms of design? Here, it becomes clear that pioneering architecture is based on universally valid architectural elements, such as light, space and proportion, regardless of site-specific limitations. »Bengal Stream« offers an invitation to go on a journey and to see one‘s own culture in a new way via discovery of another. PRESS INFORMATION Page 2 Bengal Stream – The vibrant architecture of Bangladesch Frankfurt / Main, 05.06.2019 THE VIBRANT ARCHITECTURE SCENE OF BANGLADESH (by Andreas Ruby) The fact that the Swiss Architecture Museum is producing the first major exhibition on contemporary architecture from Bangladesh ever shown outside the country begs a question or two. Such as: Why Bangladesh, of all places? And what makes architecture from Bangladesh particularly relevant to be shown in Switzerland, or in the Western world in general? A lot, actually. Bangladesh is not as far away as it seems. You may even wear a piece of clothing produced in Bangladesh as you read this, since Bangladesh is the world’s second largest exporter of Western clothing brands. But for a long time the only moments we heard about architecture in Bangladesh was when one of its textile factories tragically collapsed due to structural incapacities or fire incidents. It seems a cynical association, but it illustrates only too well how much our western view of Bangladesh is conditioned by references such as poverty, precarious labour or natural catastrophes. These phenomena are still real, but they also brand the global perception of the country in a stereotypical way and effectively obfuscate positive developments that are under way as well. And architecture is one of them. Largely unbeknownst to the world, Bangladesh has developed a highly prolific contemporary architecture scene in the course of few decades only. A stunning body of work has emerged, which can easily stand the comparison to the architectural production in the West both in terms of its quality, versatility and originality. The fact that we hardly know anything about it (myself included, until a year and a half ago) says something about the post-colonial blindfolds of architectural discourse in the West. Buildings from Bangladesh very rarely get published in Western architectural magazines or books, and even online it is difficult to find more than piece-meal information. The only exception to this rule is a building by a Western architect: Louis Kahn’s Assembly Building in Dhaka. The building is clearly one of the great mythical masterpieces of 20th century modernism, world- famous and yet visited by only a few. But maybe at least as interesting as the building itself is the cultural dialectics out of which it emerged and how it eventually empowered the unfolding of contemporary Bangladeshi architecture. It is the fruit of a most unlikely cultural dialogue that was initiated by Muzharul Islam, who is considered to be the first modern architect in the region. Islam had studied architecture at Yale in the US in the ’50s and ’60s with Paul Rudolph among his professors. Coming back to East Pakistan (which was to become Bangladesh only in 1971), he re-read the traditional Bengal building culture through the lens of Western modernism and construed a unique blend of both Eastern and Western approaches to space. When Dacca needed a new Assembly Building in 1962, he would have been ideally placed to design it. Committed to enhancing the process of cultural cross-proliferation, he however proposed to approach an international architect of renown to do the job. Kahn was elated to be chosen and immediately embraced the history of architecture of the Bengal region. Sensibly guided by the intellectual company of Islam, Kahn unearthed many inspirations that have left clear traces in his design. He seized the Assembly Building as an opportunity to absorb the building culture of Bengal, appropriating local material and construction techniques to ground his own idiosyncratical architectural approach within the place he was invited to design. In that sense the Assembly Building became the blueprint for a ‘horizontal ’ type of cultural globalization which considers all contexts as equally relevant, both worthy and able to inspire each other. It marks a clear departure from the ‘vertical’, topdown colonial application of a Western model in a developing context. When the building was finished in 1982/83 – after two decades of development, construction, and politically motivated delays – the emerging architects of Bangladesh promptly picked up on this model of horizontal cultural exchange and grasped it as an opportunity to articulate their local architectural approach in relation to Western modernism. But instead of simply copying Kahn’s approach, they applied his technique of cultural absorption in reverse direction. PRESS INFORMATION Page 3 Bengal Stream – The vibrant architecture of Bangladesch Frankfurt / Main, 05.06.2019 Embracing some of his construction methods and spatial concepts in their own designs ultimately enabled them to modernise the rich architectural history of their own country, rather than uncritically replacing their local tradition with mechanically applied formulas imported from the ‘New World’. This fascinating cultural dialectic has arguably empowered Bangladesh’s contemporary architectural scene to unfold a highly distinctive architectural language of its own, which sensibly resonates with the agendas of global architecture. It is a very robust, simple, direct and sensual architecture, that makes do with often very limited material conditions, yet accomplishes exceptional results. It is able for instance to accommodate the extreme climatic conditions with very modest technological equipment by using simple fans and vernacular natural ventilation