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Monday, 20 May, 2024

Bangladeshi architect Marina Tabassum on Time’s 100 most influential people list

While she practises very locally, she teaches, lectures, and is recognised internationally, modelling architecture not as an individual signature but as a collective Esperanto
Express Report
  20 Apr 2024, 17:52

Award-winning Bangladeshi architect Marina Tabassum has been named among the 100 Most Influential People of 2024 list by the Time magazine.

Tabassum was among the Innovators on the list published by the magazine on Thursday.

The others on the list include singers Dua Lipa and Kylie Minogue, actress Alia Bhatt, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Formula One racing driver Max Verstappen and Russian opposition leader Yulia Navalnaya.   

About Tabassum, Time wrote that while she practises very locally, she teaches, lectures, and is recognised internationally, modelling architecture not as an individual signature but as a collective Esperanto.

“Altruism isn’t typically a term attributed to award-winning architects—a profession where signature has become a common adjective—but Marina Tabassum isn’t typical. She has developed a practice and a way of being that prioritises local cultures and values, as well as the perils faced by our shared planet,” the magazine wrote.

“Tabassum’s altruism even extends to buildings themselves. She cares for her creations as creatures partaking in the resources of our earth: describing her Bait Ur Rouf Mosque in Dhaka, Bangladesh, which won the prestigious Aga Khan Award, she said a building “has to be able to breathe without artificial aids.”

Elsewhere in the country, which faces increased flood risks due to climate change, she has developed houses that are cost-effective and easy to move.

In 2016, Tabassum and Kashef Mahboob Chowdhury of Bangladesh won the Aga Khan Award for the design of Dhaka's Bait Ur Rouf Mosque and Gaibandha's Friendship Centre, respectively.

Tabassum and Chowdhury both had finished their architecture studies in 1995 from the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology.

They then opened their joint architecture firm Urbana.

After a long spell of friendship, they tied the knot in 1997, but parted ways in 2005.

By then, they had designed the Independence Monument and Museum of Independence in Dhaka's Suhrawardy Udyan.

After separation, Tabassum opened her own firm Marina Tabassum Architects.

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Bangladeshi architect Marina Tabassum on Time’s 100 most influential people list

While she practises very locally, she teaches, lectures, and is recognised internationally, modelling architecture not as an individual signature but as a collective Esperanto
Express Report
  20 Apr 2024, 17:52

Award-winning Bangladeshi architect Marina Tabassum has been named among the 100 Most Influential People of 2024 list by the Time magazine.

Tabassum was among the Innovators on the list published by the magazine on Thursday.

The others on the list include singers Dua Lipa and Kylie Minogue, actress Alia Bhatt, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Formula One racing driver Max Verstappen and Russian opposition leader Yulia Navalnaya.   

About Tabassum, Time wrote that while she practises very locally, she teaches, lectures, and is recognised internationally, modelling architecture not as an individual signature but as a collective Esperanto.

“Altruism isn’t typically a term attributed to award-winning architects—a profession where signature has become a common adjective—but Marina Tabassum isn’t typical. She has developed a practice and a way of being that prioritises local cultures and values, as well as the perils faced by our shared planet,” the magazine wrote.

“Tabassum’s altruism even extends to buildings themselves. She cares for her creations as creatures partaking in the resources of our earth: describing her Bait Ur Rouf Mosque in Dhaka, Bangladesh, which won the prestigious Aga Khan Award, she said a building “has to be able to breathe without artificial aids.”

Elsewhere in the country, which faces increased flood risks due to climate change, she has developed houses that are cost-effective and easy to move.

In 2016, Tabassum and Kashef Mahboob Chowdhury of Bangladesh won the Aga Khan Award for the design of Dhaka's Bait Ur Rouf Mosque and Gaibandha's Friendship Centre, respectively.

Tabassum and Chowdhury both had finished their architecture studies in 1995 from the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology.

They then opened their joint architecture firm Urbana.

After a long spell of friendship, they tied the knot in 1997, but parted ways in 2005.

By then, they had designed the Independence Monument and Museum of Independence in Dhaka's Suhrawardy Udyan.

After separation, Tabassum opened her own firm Marina Tabassum Architects.

Comments

El Nino to end by June, La Nina seen in second half of 2024, says US forecaster
Witnesses recount how Air Force plane caught fire and broke into 3 pieces in Chattogram
Orangutan's use of medicinal plant to treat wound intrigues scientists
Consumer rights group says Bangladesh can cut subsidies without raising energy prices. But how?
‘It is really an emergency time’, Prof ABM Abdullah says about school closure amid heatwave