Marina Tabassum Architects: In Bangladesh

Coming from Bangladesh, Marina Tabassum's exploratory approach makes her one of the most exciting contemporary positions in architecture. For her extremely diverse oeuvre, she works closely with students as well as with the local community always with the aim of designing buildings in harmony with the history, climate and culture of the Ganges Delta. Materiality and atmosphere for spiritual qualities also play an important role, as in the Bait Ur Rouf Mosque, a prayer hall made of brick and light, for which she won the internationally recognized Aga Khan Award in 2016. The planned exhibition at the TUM Museum of Architecture will present various public and private building projects that she has implemented since 1995, first with the architectural office Urbana and since 2005 with her own firm. These include the Monument and Museum of Independence in Dhaka as well as her engagement for the 1.2 million Rohingya refugees, for whom she designed a low-cost, mobile, modular house system made of bamboo, once again demonstrating her view of architecture as a medium to stabilize society. 

Bait Ur Rouf Mosque, Photo © Sandro di Carlo Darsa