THE GRUDGING URBANIST

THE GRUDGING URBANIST

Has Dhaka become a status city?

The status city often serves the privileged, while the huddling masses eke out a minimal existence

Is human civilisation at an inflection point?

Our brains are being reprogrammed to look for the easiest solutions to our most vexing social and political questions.

Is there an architecture for marginal communities?

Our experience of designing Brac regional offices across rural Bangladesh.

Muzharul Islam’s Birth Centenary / Forging a Bengali identity through modernist architecture

After completing his Bachelor of Architecture degree at the University of Oregon, Eugene, in June 1952, the 29-year-old Muzharul Islam (1923-2012) returned home to find a postcolonial Pakistan embroiled in acrimonious politics of national identity.

The Louis Kahn mystique: 20 years after ‘My Architect’

The legend of Louis Kahn remains strong.

How we should design the next generation of parks

Do we need the 24/7 hustle and bustle of Dhaka – the cacophonous dramas of this sleepless city – reproduced in its parks too?

Heatwaves, global warming, and the ethics of our cities

We must rethink how cities are planned, designed, and administered to combat the adverse effects of both the heat island problem and climate change.

A dangerous time for history

Governments are trying to control what could or could not be taught about their past.

Is smart density the way forward for Bangladesh?

Going around in Dhaka could be overwhelming. The city seems overburdened with the impossible weight of people, buildings, vehicles, rickshaws, noise, carbon emission, and nonstop activities.

Tribute to a true admirer of Bangladesh

Mary Frances Dunham (MFD) arrived in Dhaka on a wintry day in November of 1960. From the window of her room at Hotel Shahbagh, she found ample opportunities to observe the city.

The delicate work of decolonising knowledge

In recent years, the idea of “decolonising knowledge” (DK)—that knowledge creation must be liberated from West-centric and racialised views of the world—has become a bottom-up intellectual movement in Western academia.

Could public consciousness of history be a measure of social progress?

For quite some time now, people have been discussing if there are more on-the-ground, inclusive ways to measure a country’s progress, rather than supra-quantitative metrics like GDP.

Chattogram desperately needs guardian angels

It is impossible these days to not notice Chattogram’s spectacular urban decline. Go around the port city and you will only experience a place plagued by anemia, chaos, a collective greed to commercialise every open space, and overall, a curious lack of aspiration.

The sociology of eco-grief: Saving Suhrawardy Udyan

Eight years ago, in May, a large crowd staged a sit-in at Gezi Park, next to Taksim Square, Istanbul’s bustling public plaza in the downtown of its European side.

Memories, cultural imaginations and Dhaka

How do cities like Dhaka in the throes of frenzied development deal with memories and literary depictions in the process of their transformations?

How the demolition of a train station changed America

At the heart of the ongoing debate on the potential demolition of TSC and Kamalapur Railway Station in Dhaka is an old philosophical dilemma—how to progress while retaining some loyalty to history, a key concern of many 20th century philosophers, such as Paul Ricoeur.

SDGs, the tyranny of sameness, and a lesson for World Cities Day

Yesterday was World Cities Day (WCD). In 2013, the United Nations General Assembly designated October 31 as WCD to build global awareness of the challenges that cities around the world face.

SDGs, the tyranny of sameness, and a lesson for World Cities Day

The world’s urban future is full of challenges. But one of the greatest among them is a simple but profound one: the universalisation of urban problems and their generic solutions.

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