Bangladesh’s architectural world is masala (Bengali মাসালা) — an intoxicating mixture of contrasts. In the delta region, it is not only the boundaries between land and water that are blurred. Past and present merge anew. An enduring witness to this is the architecture, as the exhibition of 60 projects by established and young Bengali architects shows. Bamboo structures from the past meet monumental walls of béton brut, while Bengali latticework ornaments (jali) originally made from brick transform into semitransparent fabric. This oscillation between local and international influences was already apparent in the modern movement in the Ganges Delta. Hence, there are significant traces of Louis I. Kahn to be detected in the oeuvre of local protagonist Muzharul Islam, which can be seen in original drawings.

An exhibition by the S AM Swiss Architecture Museum, in cooperation with the Bengal Institute for Architecture, Landscapes and Settlements, Dhaka.

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Photo: Iwan Baan