Fashionable structure might not be the very very first thing that involves thoughts once you consider Bangladesh that’s blessed with its countless inexperienced of a scenic fluvial panorama. However there isn’t a doubt that an unmistakable modern architectural scene has developed within the Bengal Delta over the previous many years, which attracts increasingly worldwide consideration with its stupendous buildings. Since Switzerland additionally attaches nice significance to constructing tradition, it’s apparent {that a} transnational dialogue can generate further worth on this area.
At first look, it might appear that Bangladesh and Switzerland are fairly totally different geographically, climatically or socially. However there are as nicely similarities, such because the very particular respective panorama character which have formed settlement patterns. Right here the countless flatland of the delta, there the steep flanks of the mountains. Out of such by some means distinctive contexts comes the notice to deal with the uncommon soil of a small territory with care.
Within the wake of points such because the local weather disaster, structure presently is globally present process a change of paradigms in the direction of extra sustainability and inclusiveness. Greater than in different components of the world, architects in Bangladesh have already been coping with climatic, environmental and societal subjects for fairly a while, which just lately have gained relevance in different hemispheres, too. The cross-national dialogue on structure or city growth provides all individuals the chance to be taught from one another on how one can create future-oriented habitats.
The exhibition ‘Bengal Stream – The Vibrant Structure Scene of Bangladesh’, organised by the Swiss Structure Museum SAM in Basel in collaboration with the Bengal Institute for Structure, Landscapes and Settlement in 2017, was the primary of its form on the earth and has accelerated a cross-continental dialogue on at present’s burning points whereas it toured Europe and finally concluded in Dhaka in 2023. ‘Porosity – Enabling Buildings’, a site-specific exhibition set up that befell this yr in and across the Kalakendra Artwork House Dhaka, is one other instance of how Bangladeshi and Swiss architects change concepts about round architectonical idea in a vivid method. On this context, initiatives by Swiss Structure College students, which in a semester lengthy design course handled transport infrastructures in Dhaka, have been additionally mentioned.
That structure in Bangladesh is within the focus of Swiss professionals, amongst others, is obvious within the excessive curiosity in structure group travels organised by the Bangla-Swiss three way partnership ‘ARCHITECTourBGD’ or in the truth that Swiss publishers are launching increasingly books on the topic. Final however not least, the Swiss Company for Improvement and Cooperation just lately supported a analysis to construct small modular houses in rural Bangladesh.
Nonetheless, an change about structure doesn’t essentially need to be immediately expressed in constructed type or actual property growth. Initially, it’s concerning the inspiring fertilisation of the dialogue tradition. An animating overlap of concepts from East and West on the sustainable design of residing areas will contribute to a related constructing tradition for future generations right here and there. Structure is a cultural course of that impacts all ranges of a society and, due to this fact, can play a key function in world coexistence. And tradition is and can stay the important thing and the premise for any type of fruitful bilateral cooperation.
This text is written by Niklaus Graber, an architect based mostly in Lucerne, Switzerland and the lead curator of the exhibition “Bengal Stream – The Vibrant Structure Scene of Bangladesh.”
