DHAKATOTEM by AECID PUBLICACIONES

Authors: Adnan Morshed, Héctor Fernández Elorza, Marian Planelles, Salma Abedin Prithi and Tor Torhaug. Concept: Alejandra López García Graphic Design: David Palazón (www.davidpalazon.com) Editorial Coordination: Ariadna A. Garreta Project Coordination: Fahd Bin Malek Newaz Translation: David González-Iglesias Copyright © AECID, Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional para el Desarrollo and Altrim Publishers, 2018 Published by: Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional para el Desarrollo Catálogo general de publicaciones oficiales de la Administración General del Estado https://publicacionesoficiales.boe.es Altrim Publishers Passeig de Manuel Girona 55 08034 Barcelona (Spain) www.altrim.net First edition, November 2018. Printed and bound in Bangladesh. Second edition, December 2018. Printed and bound in India. NIPO: 502-18-075-2 NIPO (online): 502-18-076-8 ISBN: 978-84-942342-7-9 Depósito Legal: B 26853-2018 Text © Authors Drawings and pictures © Authors All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise or stored in a database or retrieval system without the prior written permission of the Publishers. This publication has been possible thanks to the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID). The content of the book does not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of AECID. This publication is part of the editorial programme of the former Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation and it has been edited by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the European Union and Cooperation, according to the restructuring of ministerial departments established by Royal Decree 355/2018 of June 6.

DHAKA ঢাকা ট�োটেম

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DHAKA TOTEM PROJECT | An introduction | 06

LOCATION MAP | 08

01 02

LE CORBUSIER & LOUIS KAHN VISIT DHAKA | Adnan Morshed | 11

RECONSTRUCTING THE UTOPIA, NOT ONLY WITH CONCRETE. GROUNDHOG DAY | Marian Planelles | 17

SOMEWHERE? NOWHERE? IN TRANSIT – LOOKING AT DHAKA TRAFFIC | Tor Torhaug | 29

04 05

FLIGHT 001 | Salma Abedin Prithi | 37

DHAKA, FROM THE INFORMAL SPACE TO THE SPACES OF SILENCE | Héctor Fernández Elorza | 43

ABOUT THE AUTHORS | 53

ADDITIONAL CREDITS & ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS | 54

DHAKA TOTEM | An Introduction

Dear reader, We wish to thank you for having this book in your hands. You probably opened it on a random page, without a plan, in an attempt to satisfy the curiosity that we may have been able to awaken with the haphazardly arranged letters of the title on the cover. You may have wondered whether this is a travel guide, a book of short stories or a collection of essays on the city after which it has been named. Our first objective in this edition is to arouse curiosity among readers and visitors of bookshops and libraries. If we managed to achieve that goal through the graphical layout of the cover, we may as well reveal now why it is called Dhaka Totem, and we invite you to roam through its pages in the unknown and enigmatic capital of Bangladesh. Welcome on board.

THE TITLE We opted for the fullness of these four syllables that reverberate with primitive myths and tribal rites that might still exist in this urban jungle made up of asphalt animals, billboards with neon lights and signs that show the routes and stops of urban transport. In spite of the enigmatic nature of the title, its explanation does not hold any mysteries, and although the book ends with a chapter called Dhaka Taboo, which may remind us of the book written by the Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, Totem und Tabu, there is no such relationship or parallelism in them, and the name is the result of mere chance. 6

THE PROJECT It all started with one person: Professor Adnan Morshed, Director of the Chair of Architecture in the BRAC University of Dhaka in the years 2017 and 2018. Those of us who have worked on this book are indebted to him and to his efforts to bring Spanish architects to Dhaka to participate in training initiatives and conferences over those years. Attracted perhaps by that totem of contemporary architecture, the building of the Parliament of Bangladesh designed by Louis Kahn, or maybe by their curiosity and a large dose of professionalism, different Spanish architects visited the city and this parade of talented workers was a great success. The Embassy of Spain in Dhaka supported Professor Morshed in his endeavour and had the idea of creating this book with the texts, drawings and photographs produced by the visiting architects. This project has received the help of collaborators from different countries and walks of life. Some of them have been living in this city for years, even if they are only passing through, and others were born here. They all have something to say about the city in which they live and which lives in them. Please fasten your seatbelts, put your mobile phones in flight mode and your seats in the position which you find most comfortable. Dhaka, October 2018 Alejandra Lรณpez Deputy Head of Mission Embassy of Spain in Dhaka

LOCATION MAP

BANGLADESH বাংলাদেশ Land area: 147,570km2 Population: 166.37 million in 2018 (open sources) Currency: Benhgali Taka (TK) Language: Bangla or Bengali (official)

INDIA

INDI

DHAKA

1 2

MYANMAR BAY OF BENGAL

1. Cox’s Bazar. Largest beach in the world 2. Sundarbans. Largest mangrove forest in the world

DHAKA ঢাকা 1. Parliament Building AIRPORT

2. Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College and Hospital 3. Bangladesh Air Force Museum 4. Dhaka University 5. Bait Ur Rouf Mosque 6. Karail 7. Kamalapur Railway Station

UE GULSHAN AVEN

MIRPUR

AIRPOR

T AVEN UE

8. Baridhara

2 1

GA AN

G RI BU

4 OLD DHAKA

V RI 9

LE CORBUSIER AND LOUIS KAHN VISIT DHAKA

Adnan Morshed

At a public place in the afterlife, Louis Kahn ran into Le Corbusier. The Franco-Swiss architect was pleased to see the esoteric guru from Philadelphia. They sat on a Henry Moore bench, custom-built for eternal life, under a leafy tree. As one would imagine, it was not easy for two heavyweights to strike up a conversation. After an uneasy pause Corbu asked, “So, I hear you designed the large parliament complex in Dhaka which was first offered to me?” Looking away at a heavenly bird that chirped on a nearby tree, Kahn replied, “Yes. In 1965, when you perished during your Mediterranean swim in the south of France, I was actually in Dhaka. We worked feverishly to get the design work for the Parliament done before agitation for independence in the then East Pakistan would take it all away. Politically, it was a tempestuous time there. Bengalis were very unhappy that West Pakistan’s ruling elite was depriving them both politically and economically. The streets in Dhaka were rough. But I kept my cool and went on with the work. So, why did you not accept the Dhaka project?” “Well, I was too tired after Chandigarh. During the 1950s, the Indian bureaucracy kind of drained me. I just couldn’t take on a grand new commission in the Subcontinent! By the way, did you visit Chandigarh?”

“Yes, of course, I was already in India, designing the Indian Institute of Management (IIM). My first trip to India was in 1962 and your new capital in Punjab was being described as India’s

“I know you departed from that world

new, modern face. I visited Chandigarh

below in 1974. Interestingly, from a men’s

with great interest. I knew you had

room at the Pennsylvania Station in New

struggled there to make something that

York, on your way back from the Indian

needed to be timeless and to shoulder

Subcontinent. You lay unclaimed for a

India’s burden of showcasing its own

few days because your passport didn’t

modernity.”

show an address, right? I too had a dramatic departure from the world. My

“You can say that! Chandigarh was sort

body floated in the Mediterranean and

of my existential crisis. I have been writing

was found by bathers. Don’t you agree

about cities since the 1920s but I needed

that both our ends were rather strange

a project with which and a leader with

and poetic? By the way, who finished

whom to realize my dreams of the Ville

the project after you left?”

Contemporaine and the Ville Radieuse. With Chandigarh and Nehru came my happy

“I died broke, but I was fortunate to

opportunity. But tell me about Dhaka. How

have a few very trusted architects in

was the city in the 1960s when you got there

my team. They took the completion

and what kind of problems did you face?”

of the project almost like a religious duty. The Parliament complex at

“Well, Dhaka was then a quiet city with a rural

Sher-e-Bangla Nagar was eventually

ambiance. Very few cars and lots of green!

completed in 1983, nine years after

The 200-acre site that was given to us at the

I took off. The 11-story concrete

beginning was on the northern border of the

building survived the liberation war

city. The area was mostly a vast paddy field.

of Bangladesh in 1971. In fact, the

The capital of East Pakistan was not really a city

West Pakistani pilots who were

then. It was more a large village with minimal

bombing East Pakistan thought

urban infrastructure and some buildings. On

it was a vast ruin. So, they didn’t

my arrival in Dhaka, I took a boat ride down the

bomb it! In the end, I think it

Buriganga River, saw some interesting canals

turned out to be a neat project.

and wetlands, and tried to understand the role of

Architects loved it, people loved

water in this vast delta. I also visited some Mughal

it, the administration loved it.

buildings in Old Dhaka. Gradually I began to think

It seemed to have symbolized

of what a parliament complex should be in a context

the independence struggle of

in which there wasn’t much urban history.”

Bangladesh.”

Corbu didn’t seem too eager to believe Kahn. He said with hesitation, “But I also heard that some thought it was too much like a castle—a fort—too removed from the ordinary life of the city; and, too expensive for a war-ravaged country!” “Well, I was interested in a monumental public

“That’s what all architects wish for,

institution and an architectural language for it

isn’t it? I had tried to achieve that

that would inspire a new nation. In my design

in Chandigarh. In any case, how’s

for the Parliament complex of Bangladesh,

Dhaka these days? Have you been

I wanted to be Roman, Mughal, Bengali,

following things there?”

and deltaic, all at the same time. In the end though, I wanted none of these. I strove for

Kahn seemed excited suddenly, “Why

an archetypal building onto which people

don’t we take a quick trip to Dhaka

could project their dreams and hopes.”

without anybody noticing us? I am sure we can manage the heavenly guards up here.” Corbu sounded energized too, “Yes, let’s do it. I wish I had visited the city when I was doing Chandigarh.” There was a massive explosion, followed by lightning and Corbu and Kahn appeared at Motijheel, about 200 feet away from Shapla Chattar. The time was 11:45 in the morning. It was hot and humid. The streets were cacophonous. Corbu seemed shocked to see the intensity of traffic congestion in downtown Dhaka. “When I was proposing city concepts back in the 1920s and 1930s, I thought that cars were the answer to the cities of tomorrow; that cars would give people mobility. So, cities like Chandigarh and Brasilia were inspired by the need for motorized vehicles. But Dhaka feels like a place from another planet! I thought the country was poor. How are there so many cars?” 13

“Well, that’s the paradox. Instead of learning from our failed experiences, the developing countries are making the same mistakes we did in Paris, New York, and London. We thought that we must have cars to go around the city.

“Of course, Doshi was my guide when I was

In America, except for a few main cities

there working on IIM.”

we never really had public transportation systems that served all economic classes.

The two gentlemen hailed a rickshaw.

So, people bought cars for mobility and

Kahn directed the rickshawalla to Manik

for prestige. Sadly, Dhaka is repeating the

Mia Avenue. The two men enjoyed the

urban ritual. With the amount of fuel that

ride, as they discussed city planning,

is burning, in this Dhaka air we may die

road congestion, over population, urban

again, today! The city that I knew during

politics, and, of course, building, building

the 1960s was pleasant, even though it was

everywhere. They both wished for a

very hot and humid during the summer.

chance to fix the city. Corbu insisted that

I walked a lot around Farmgate and

the capital must be moved somewhere

Agargaon to get a sense of the site for the

else in Bangladesh in order to alleviate

Parliament. The Bengali architect Muzharul

the pressure on Dhaka. But this was

Islam was my guide. He was energetic and

classic Le Corbusier: Taking the capital

eager to introduce me to Bengali culture.

somewhere else would mean he

There were very few cars in the streets and

would be the logical choice to design

you could walk safely.”

the new capital! Kahn was reluctant to abandon the existing city. He

Kahn continued, “People were more interested

suggested decentralizing it and

in talking about politics and West Pakistani

argued that nothing would solve

conspiracies than cars and other stuff. Anyway,

Dhaka’s problems unless people

let’s get out of here. The honking is driving me

were able to find opportunities

crazy! Did you try the rickshaws in India?”

elsewhere as well.

“Yes, a few times, in Ahmedabad. An Indian

When they arrived at Manik Mia

architect named Doshi, who was my good friend,

Avenue, Corbu alighted from the

took me around to see the old city in Ahmedabad.

rickshaw and stepped on to the

You probably know Doshi too.”

broad sidewalk. He gazed at the Parliament building for a long time.

In a measured tone he said, “It doesn’t look democratic, but its allusion to ancient grandeur is intriguing. I think your building is catastrophically modern. It moves us with both a timeless spirit and melancholy. It gives the haunting, sublime experience that every edifice ultimately aspires to achieve. Still, I think you could have done more. You had the chance to do a master plan for the city, instead of just a parliament complex. An architect should never create just the project that was commissioned to him. He must improve the very location for which the construction is proposed.

For the rest of the time that the two

Here, you have created a false Taj Mahal,

men spent there, Corbu was silent until

surrounded by a sea of urban absurdities.

he pronounced, “Great architecture

Where is the good society?”

ultimately gives us a spiritual experience, one in which the temptation of heaven

“A small spatial ritual, a tiny order, a quiet

and the fear of hell become less important.

institution, a meditative monument can

A spiritual reckoning is essential for social

be the beginning of a good society, of a

transformation.”

resilient nation. That is this, here. That is what I dreamed of in the 1960s.”

“Dhaka needs it,” Kahn responded. “Without that feeling, it is impossible to abandon a life of false luxury and empty promises. Shall we return to the skies?” Corbu replied, “Yes, let’s. I think our journey has either ended, or just begun.” Adnan Morshed July 18, 2018 15

RECONSTRUCTING THE UTOPIA, NOT ONLY WITH CONCRETE. GROUNDHOG DAY Marian Planelles Life and an extreme restlessness have made me pack my cases several times over the last 13 years as an expat, in order to study and work in Germany, Mexico, the Netherlands, Canada, Bolivia, Bulgaria and Bangladesh. My global view of several continents, their culture, architecture and development has been enlarged after visiting some 70 countries. In conclusion, apart from being restless, I must also be a nomad. I lived in Dhaka for exactly three years, from September 2013 to September 2016. I still work there, but I am currently living in Sofia, Bulgaria, and I travel to Bangladesh every month. Five years is a substantial amount of time to get a global picture of this fascinating and disturbing city. This city is, in my view, the most complicated to understand that I will ever visit. I generally compare it with a previous stage in my life in which I travelled across India, a country that I loved and that I endured. After doing some voluntary work in Kolkata, I came to believe that that place was hell on earth, until I discovered Dhaka. As I was telling you, I landed in Dhaka on 13 September 2013, a hartal day (strike action). The city was still, all the shops and schools were closed and people were advised not to walk on the streets and not to use the car to trave. There was silence, which was unusual as I would later learn. It was a year of political instability in which death sentences were imposed for kidnapping, murdering or torturing members of the army during the LIberation War against Pakistan in 1971. My first impressions of Dhaka were absolutely devastating. I had travelled across India for months and I had been in my element, hopping from a sleeper class on their British trains, to their long and hard 12-hour journeys in local buses, and now I was blocked. 17

How was this possible? What was happening to me? I have visited approximately 70 countries, from Alaska to Bolivia to southern Vietnam and now I felt a hand around my neck that was choking me. I was feeling overwhelmed by something, and I did not know how to make sense of it all. I said to myself: ‘Marian, you need more time to understand the political and historical heritage of this city, and to assimilate the way of life in a Muslim country. I am sure that among all this noise and chaos you will ultimately find the truth.’ This was the clichéd self-help nonsense I was clinging to. Months went by, and many attacks took place against lay writers, bloggers and editors who belonged to religious minorities, such as Hindus, Buddhists, Christians and Shiites, perpetrated by Islamic extremists. I could not understand anything. I read, I asked around, I tried to get some information. So, are they going to be sentenced to death by hanging today at midnight? ‘Yes, stay at home tonight and do not go out with friends.’ I was not able to empathize with the news, which meant that I started to live in a bubble created by ignorance and to be an alien in my own city. At this point, I understood that I was approaching my relationship with the idiosyncrasy of the place where I lived from outside. And why? I will try to provide an answer here.

I understood that my perspective as an expat in Dhaka would always be a bird’seye view. I think that I would need two lives to comprehend all its ins and outs. But, what does this particular city contain inside? What is hidden behind the great headlines? What information do we receive from outside? – Dhaka, where life is a struggle. – The capital of Bangladesh is one of the worst places to live, according to The Economist. (Then, I realized that I had moved from living for two years in Vancouver, the city with the best quality of life in the world, to the worst one). 18

– The WHO warns that this is also one of the most polluted places in the world. – What hides behind ‘Made in Bangladesh’? – Bangladesh: Girls damaged by child marriage. These headlines hide some truths, a difficult present and, consequently, an uncertain—albeit undoubtedly better—future. They hide endless patience, emotional intelligence, mental stability and hope, both for its inhabitants and for those of us who come here as guests. However, at the same time, even if I developed each of those subjects extensively, these headers do not provide enough information to solve my daily agitation. I cannot lift this feeling of unease or appease my uncertainty. These realities are projected on a majority which is not mine. I am still lost. Living in Dhaka is not easy.

I am ther e, sittin g on a st ool, watc the shore. hing

016. er 2 vemb , No . e d s n i e cru fri ver r a a ri y fo Dhak part l l e rew A fa

I try some others. My headline, as an architect, would be: ‘Dhaka,

a dilapidated city, a jungle of concrete.’ This one, for me, is a faithful representation of life in this city and of its inhabitants. Bangladesh is a country within a globalized world that is only able to compete with its immense number of unskilled workers, either in the textile sector or in the construction industry outside its borders. And, for me, this is one of the keys to understand this city: the lack of technicians and of organization, in a country without 19

professionalization, results in madness and chaos, which are of course compounded by its history, density, demographic profile, corruption, pollution, etc . . . Is it the lack of understanding of the city that causes this disorientation? I keep deliberating around these concepts. Common sense and logic—which are increasingly rare in the world—do not go hand in hand here. As a result, everything is a mess and I am more and more disoriented. When August arrives, you no longer know whether it is winter or summer. The days are longer, but the sunset still comes early. It rains all the time; you cannot see the sun and finally you no longer know what day it is. If you mix all this, you do not need to be blindfolded and turned around five times: you already have the perfect cocktail bomb. Other possible headlines you might find: – Dhaka, a city that will collapse unless it controls radicalism and implements proper development policies. – Pain, sorrow and contrast set the pace of the city. – Small green sprouts covered by the muddy and polluted air. – The rural exodus may be a global trend, but Dhaka’s industrial suburbs cannot hold it any longer. – Densities that kill. Actually, what does this say to us? The logical question would be: Why do you still live there? The headlines and articles that reach us only simplify negative impressions that contrast with the pain and the positive attitude of the country’s inhabitants. It is unclear whether this feeling is based on ignorance, survival, religion or conformism, or whether there really is a spark of hope for the future in their hearts. The urban landscape is made up of cars, concrete, noise and pollution. The sky becomes white day after day, and it feels like facing thousands of fallen trees that need to be straightened up again and that fall down the minute you manage to do it. Therefore, the feeling of an endless undefined loop is repeated over and over again, as if this was Groundhog Day. 20

I do not know whether you remember the movie, Groundhog Day, but that is Dhaka. This is the answer to my questions. Life seems to become a tragicomedy, which is more or less funny, depending on what happens to you during the day. The main character in the movie, Phil (Bill Murray) is trapped in a city he hates, and the thing he detests the most is the 2nd of February, Groundhog Day. February 3rd never comes, and when he wakes up it is always Groundhog Day. The same thing happens the next morning, and the next one. He is trapped in a time loop, and he does not know how to break the cycle. Of course, the main character tends to think the worst in every situation. He is a very negative person who does not stop complaining, who hates his job and most people and the places he goes. He really is a very unhappy person: that is his identity and the way he lives. Phil could be any expat that is starting to live in Dhaka. This movie reminds us of the Buddhist idea of reincarnation: we are trapped in an eternal cycle of death and rebirth until we reach enlightenment or we really understand what everything is about. Christians think it is something similar to purgatory. In my opinion, the crux of the movie and of our stay in Dhaka is that we can look at the great questions of life into greater detail:

What the hell are we doing on this planet? What is the meaning of life? Or, to be more precise, what gives meaning to life? ‘What a terrible place to live! What a dumpster!’ Those are his thoughts. They are just that, thoughts, but Phil lives them as if they were real, and that is why they become his reality. From the moment you land and go through immigration at the airport, you feel as if you were entering a great prison with 16 million inhabitants, or maybe 20—the exact figure is unknown—, and you are fully aware that there is no escape. Day after day, concrete slowly starts to grow heavy, dirt starts to eat you up and air asphyxiates you. The need to flee becomes more real than ever. 21

In this eternal Groundhog Day we, as expats, go through the three different stages of the movie: Let us eat, drink, dance and sing, so that we may forget the hard day that we will repeat tomorrow. Every day, crows wake you up at dawn, and if you were lucky the mosquitoes did not startle you at midnight. A car picks you up inside your building. Your driver makes its way through the traffic jam to take you to your office. You yell, ‘Taratari! ’ so that he goes faster, while horns keep blowing, rickshaws cut you off, the sun burns your arm through the car window while the air conditioning freezes the other arm, and the day has just started. You are in a city in which it is already almost impossible to walk. You become so sedentary and your diet is so terrible that you no longer care that you are putting on a lot of weight. This is pure epicureanism. Like the main character in the movie, you try to fill your life with ephemeral pleasures, and it seems that you are having a whale of a time until the crisis strikes and it seems that nothing makes sense anymore. ‘What would you do if you were stuck in one place and every day was exactly the same, and nothing that you did mattered?’ Phil, the main character, asks his pals at the bar this question. The answer is obvious; or at least it is obvious if no spiritual basis is applied. What would you do? Think about it, anything you wanted. Days are endless work and nights are endless booze. Everything seems to be repeating itself. Then, what once seemed a dream life becomes a nightmare and you move to a stage of existential nihilism where you cannot see the point of living in Dhaka. And so, you start to isolate yourself from your environment. At first, you try to go everywhere by cycle rickshaw, which gives you a certain feeling of freedom, until you realize that there is the possibility of an accident, of being robbed, of rain, etc. This is not due to fear, but to the real stories that you hear. And then, one day, you stop doing it altogether. If there are no taxis, public buses are dirty pieces of crap, full of sick and crowded with people. You cannot drive and you cannot walk, and your freedom of movement is restricted to cars with drivers, ‘a very natural solution’. 22

Therefore, you just build your own walls. You are already behind the barrier. You built it yourself. You erected a concrete wall that is as grotesque as the ones that stare at you every day, but yours protects you from the city. You become a mere observer behind a window: the window of your car, of your office, of a restaurant, of your home. You are always locked up; you create your own jail. cycle urneys by My first jo . ember 2013 pt Dhaka, Se rickshaw.

This is new for everybody: a city without leisure, without museums, without culture, without public-squares. It is an anti-city. It is not my intention to open a debate on the city

as a physical space and the phenomenon of urban nature, or on the concept of non-places, which has been explored by philosophers, architects, anthropologists, etc. throughout history. I do not wish to review the theories of the Chicago School or the ‘right to the city’ Marxist ideas put forward by Henri Lefebvre. Your leisure time is ultimately spent in expat clubs, where playing tennis, going to the swimming pool, hanging out with friends or having a beer in a terrace is the closest you can get to your past life. Today you are lucky and there is a party on the rooftop terrace. You get drunk and you end up in your friends’ house. On the next day you want to see that there may be more to it than that and you try to make some cool plan, to visit a different neighbourhood, to leave your square mile of comfort, but the pleasure you obtain is inversely proportional to the effort, and it is just not worth it. Then comes the mental crisis of the expat, because you do not have real problems. Many expats wish they were dead, like Phil. It is just a manner of speech, but they do not know how to escape from all that nihilism and they leave Dhaka without finding any truth, without discovering something positive. Others change their attitude when they hit rock bottom and they grow spiritually. Sometimes, the worst day of your life is the catalyst to change everything.

And that is how, one day, for the first time in a long time, Phil wakes up with a feeling similar to hope. There is a change in your attitude that shows you all the positive things inside you and that Dhaka is offering. In this case, I am Phil. The sudden wish to grow inside and to become a better person, which you had abandoned, transforms Groundhog Day, which is your reality, into the best day of your life. It makes you enjoy your friends as if they were your brothers and sisters and be thankful that all the harsh realities that you see every day are not your own. You find meaning in every minute. You try to help others and to improve your environment, and your great truth involves not complaining, because if you look around, you realize that you have no reason to do so. You understand that giving is receiving. In spite of living countless days in an endless loop, Phil finds himself in a weird emotional state: he is happy. I am happy. A change takes place. Phil feels grateful and that is how the curse is broken. ‘Do you want to see heaven on earth?’ they asked me when I lived in Mexico. ‘Be grateful for today.’ I had forgotten about it. I can only give infinite thanks to Dhaka and its inhabitants for everything they gave me, for what I learnt, for the magic moments I lived and for how much I laughed and enjoyed when I lived there, because the word ‘boredom’ does not exist there. With this gratitude, the loop was broken forever. I believe that most of us sometimes live as if we were trapped in our personal Groundhog Day. We forget about what is important, about the present moment, about being grateful and enjoying any situation. That is DHAKA TOTEM. Every cloud has a silver lining and you find it in its inhabitants. They love their country, they love their city, and they love and understand adversity. And that grants them a great future, because some of them are lucky enough to cross their borders and live abroad, to receive an education and to travel, and I can say that most of them come back to their country feeling grateful in order to develop it, hoping for change because they love their customs and their handicap of chaos.

I feel lucky to share my experience with all of you; to scream out loud that I could not be more grateful to Dhaka, both from a personal and a professional perspective.

The city offers you chances that other extraordinary cities never gave you. It is just a matter of learning how to approach them. Personal relationships, which are the element that gives sense to our lives, are so deep that their intensity is fascinating. I am amazed just thinking about it. You build friendships so strong that they can tear down any wall. Because life is so hard, you share every day with all your friends. Not a day goes by in which you do not socialize. You need your friends. You need to laugh. And we all contribute to that magic. We all earnestly give the best we got to have a good time, to laugh and to have endless fun, with the originality of those who have nothing. To do so, you even improvise a festival of San FermĂn, or whatever else is necessary. We celebrate everything.

The first iftar with my friends at the office. 16 July 2014.

which dding to Bengali we y 2014. The first ar nu Ja a, ted. Dhak I was invi

I cannot forget to mention my Bangladeshi friends, who taught me how to understand a different culture and to be patient, and whom I love dearly. They trusted me with their most intimate secrets; they described their first dates, which were organized by their mothers; they told me what adolescence was like for them, how your life changes when you decide to marry a Hindu when you are a Muslim, or how some of them explained to their families that they want to choose their partner themselves and to marry for love, which proves that change is not a utopia. I can also share some gossip: I met the man of my life there (I know it sounds clichĂŠd, but it is true). I had been auditioning for 33 years until I saw him. He is not from Bangladesh, but from the land of oranges in Spain: Valencia. We married in Dhaka, the city that joined us together, the city where I first used a white saree. To me, Dhaka is that fascinating city I was telling you about before. I will not deny that I still grumble a bit before I go back there for work every month, but you know what? That feeling of self-control and balance that unravels inside me is just magical. It tells me that my strength conquers all, and also that I am happy. It is a cultural shock that I now understand and enjoy, perhaps because I have a return ticket. Just kidding. Smile.

Buying eggs on my wedd ing day. 16 June 2016.

SOMEWHERE? NOWHERE? IN TRANSIT – LOOKING AT DHAKA TRAFFIC Tor Torhaug For the best part of two years I have lived in Dhaka, but I have no illusions that I know much about it—geography, demography, politics, the creaking infrastructure. Still, I take pictures. What I know: Dhaka is an enormous agglomeration of humanity, crammed into too small a space. I come—an accompanying spouse to a Norwegian diplomat—and begin to photograph what I see, or rather: what I notice. The tempting and striking, the exotic: painted cycle rickshaws—reminiscent of colourful mythological chariots— the smiling-though-poor rickshaw-puller, the vivid saris of the female labourers, the ambiguous body language of hijra beggars, the caged-in passengers of the three-wheeled CNG taxis. It’s all surface—the depths of what I see and photograph require knowledge I do not have. I focus on myself. The commute from home to the Pathshala school of photography (I am a student), from Gulshan 2 (north), to Dhanmondi (further south). What I see: the view of some Dhaka roads from the back seat of a large car, sometimes it is the rush hour, sometimes not, sometimes moving quite fast, sometimes stuck.

Sometimes I get out and walk, to see—and take pictures—from a different perspective. I don’t try too hard to understand. I observe and click the shutter.

What I think I see is hierarchy: walkers, rickshaws, cycles, threewheel CNG-taxis, motorcycles, small cars, large cars, vans, passenger vans, buses, the occasional tanker truck (in daylight the colourfully decorated common trucks are not allowed in the city). The weaker, as always, cede to the stronger. The walker, the cyclist, the rickshaw-wallah, even the metal box CNG, tend to give way to the private car—why should the privileges of the rich not extend to traffic? But riches and rights-of-way give only a small advantage (unless you are so important a person that the police will stop all other traffic for you, empty the roads and give you, and your police escort front, back, and sides, access to all the road you could ever need, while those with less power wait and wait and wait). There is seldom total stasis even in a jam. The gridlock is not quite locked—an ever-changing jigsaw-puzzle creates openings for the different pieces—pedestrians sneaking between the cracks, with their off-warding hand signs which somehow seem to work even on motorists convinced that their right of way is absolute. Cyclists, pedalling for themselves. Rickshaw-passengers, seldom very comfortable, behind a pedalling, lean, sunburned man.

Motorcyclists, occupying little space on the road, agile with their small engines with or without passengers. Seldom more than one crash helmet per bike, worn by the driver. Sometimes, side-saddling female passengers, behind a husband or brother. Like rickshaws they make their own impromptu lanes, lurching faster forward into the smaller spaces a motorcycle needs. Private cars with important people—we think—in the back seat. And the passenger vans, open, with the conductor (and in rush-hour passengers) clinging to the ladder in the back. The larger buses—like the passenger vans— racing anarchically towards the next stop, taking on and letting off passengers in the road’s outer lanes, leaving them to bravely swim to the sidewalks in a sea of hard steel plate—which can move fast enough to kill. But buses, too, get stuck—and bored passengers gaze idly at the stationary surroundings.

Sometimes the road opens, and we race towards the next jam. But slowness is the rule. A slowness which allows the contemplation of the unstable cityscape of the road: ever-changing impromptu architecture, shiny sheet metal and convex glass, reflective and transparent, distorting and deceptive, juxtapositions of vehicles, hawkers, passers-by, and urban landscape. The world seems partly hidden behind a looking glass, a maze of reflections and transparencies, not quite a place, not quite nowhere. There is only the road, the transit, the strangers we know nothing of (and are not really interested in), as we are caught in the frictions of the growing megacity’s impossible infrastructure.

FLIGHT 0001 Salma Abedin Prithi

Flight 0001 is an imaginary flight of the destitute people of Bangladesh, a country highly dependent on migration and international remittances. It was really surprising for Prithi to see hundreds of people in an airforce museum trying to get inside a plane that will never fly. These are all ordinary people of Dhaka paying a dollar to experience an airplane, which is not affordable for many in real life. They could travel miles on a bus with the same amount of money but they checked in to an imaginary flight to experience it for the first time. Prithi saw ordinary ladies ready to take off from the cockpits who might work in garments or any cheap labour industry. It was absolute freedom to have a break from their mundane reality. But the more Prithi photographed the pseudo passengers, the more she could relate the scenes with migrant issues which remain uncertain and scary for many labourers of the city.

Dreaming of a better income often pushes them to a barren desert or an unknown locality far from their loved ones. Some lose their connections and some never return. A real flight might often seem too scary to take off. The museum only stays as a metaphor in Prithiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s work to explore an unreal flight which turns to both desire and nightmare for the working class people of Dhaka.

BLANGLADESH AIR FORCE MUSEUM BAF Base Bashar, Tejgaon, Dhaka Tel: 02 8753420 Fax: 02 8751931 Email: info@bafmuseum.mil.bd Opening hours Summer (16 Feb – 30 Nov) | Winter (01 Dec – 15 Feb) Mon-Thur 14:00 – 20:00 14:00 – 20:00 Fri-Sat 10:00 – 20:00 10:00 – 20:00 *Sundays closed due to maintenance

fig. 01

DHAKA, FROM THE INFORMAL SPACE TO THE SPACES OF SILENCE HĂŠctor FernĂĄndez Elorza What is particular about the places we visit? What makes a city truly unique? What fields, circumstances or events make a context special and different from any other place we have seen, and which ones represent the specific and unique DNA of its characteristic context? These are questions that we may ask ourselves frequently when searching for the answers that make the places we visit attractive. These aspects are often not obvious and require some time and thought to be understood. In Dhaka it is abundantly clear that the apparent chaos and the frenzied activity of its streets are the main factor for the visitor or, at least, the first one they notice. This is particularly true if the visitors come from the West, where nowadays the centres of cities are losing activity in favour of the suburbs. Here, the multitude of small actions, of people, vehicles and boats turn the city of Dhaka into an ecosystem which is difficult to understand, or to explain at first. This first impression shifts gradually as days go by, when the act of exploring its streets, taking part of those crowds of people and making an effort to find an internal order to all that chaos brings about one of the first conclusions of this text: the apparent chaos of the city is constantly being fed by endless informal actions that keep it alive at a variable equilibrium. These informal situations do not generally take place at the same time or in the same place, which means that the city moves around in an unstable balance based on the changing circumstances that take place in it. One factor that contributes to this situation, for example, is the fact that timetables and punctuality in general are tremendously lax: the caravan of an important politician may close an entire avenue and completely restructure the already chaotic traffic, a storm in monsoon season can collapse the entire city centre, and the street sellers who approach the cars adapt their products to the time of day, the season of the year or any other 43

specific event. If we try to visit Dhakaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s old quarter at 2 a.m., the only time of day in which it is empty (but never completely) and we compare it with the atmosphere of the same place some hours later, it becomes clear that the nature of those places lies in the events that take place in it. That is, the container of the city is not unique or special, and what makes Dhaka different is the daily range of infinitesimal actions that are enacted there and, more specifically, their instability and variability. In contrast with this chaotic and informal space, visitors find, as they get to know the city, areas of tranquillity that grant them the stability and silence necessary in such a frenzied context. Not everything can be chaos and informality, and these places of rest are a much-needed counterpoint in one of the densest and most active cities in the world. While bazaars or the docks are the places where the streets [fig. 01 on page 42] and the river meet at the point of maximum activity and represent the epitome of chaos, the city hides areas where that furiously-paced rhythm finds some serenity. The rest of this text will discuss those Spaces of Silence with an approach and an interpretation based on the field of architecture â&#x20AC;&#x201D;which was inevitable, on the other handâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;, and in an attempt to define the places I found when I was roaming around Dhaka and that I would recommend to those friends of mine who asked me for advice when visiting this interesting city. These are not obvious places; there are travel guides for that, and I cannot include as many sites as I would have liked, because I only went to Dhaka by chance, and my days there were few. However, these are calm places where I found the necessary courage to understand this enormous metropolis, its people, the hidden rules that govern it, and the balance to the seemingly unstable chaos. These Spaces of Silence may be arranged and defined in terms of SHADE, or according to the importance of WATER in their definition, or either because they represent a THRESHOLD or an intermediate space between the throbbing Informal Space of the city and the quieter areas.

The ambulatory of the National Assembly Building [fig. 02 below], created by the American architect Louis Kahn, is undoubtedly one of the most exciting spaces we can find in Dhaka. Structured as if it were an exfoliated building, it is distributed along endless layers that surround its Central Hall as if it were establishing an ongoing

fig. 02

agreement between the city and the silence that must reign in an

Assembly Hall. The room itself has a lobed dome with a skylight that allows the sun to enter from above and to be distributed indirectly around the hall, so that the intensity of the light in the heart and centre of the building can be the same as the one in the street. Between both places, the outer world and the central hall, Kahn designed an ambulatory that is transformed into a unique experience thanks to the shade. This is a space where darkness plays the main role in a synchronized game with the enormous scale of its dimensions that is difficult to find in other examples in the history of modern architecture. Another exciting finding is the underground complex that houses the Museum of Independence, by architects Marina Tabassum and Kashef Chowdhury. In this case, the intense darkness of the place is combined with the prominent role of the sound of water, located below a skylight which is clearly the main element of the entire project. Once again, in the outskirts of the city the identity of the Bait Ur Rouf mosque, also designed by Tabassum [fig. 03 on the opposite page], is also defined by shade. This project gathers light from above in the perimeter to create a homogeneous atmosphere around the central hall, which has lots of small skylights in its covering as if they were shots of light. These are three examples where shade feeds different Spaces of Silence that escape not only from the constant noise of the city, but also from its intense light. Probably, one of the most extraordinary sites in the city of Dhaka is the ferry and launch terminal located by the river, next to the old quarter. Observing the activity that gathers there when the motor launches come from neighbouring towns, mixed with the small boats that incessantly cross the river, is a show that is hard to describe. The water table of the river in this remarkably flat area makes the water appear constantly throughout the entire city in small ponds and lakes and it becomes one of the main features of the town. Two of the sites where water creates an atmosphere of silence or calmness are the urban pond of Gol Talab [fig. 04 on page 48], located in the old quarter next to the river, and the pond of the Faculty of Fine Arts, a smaller and artificial body of water created by the renowned architect Muzharul Islam. The first of these two places is a surprising finding on a great scale. After the difficulties to get there through narrow streets through which 46

fig. 03

a rickshaw can barely fit, a huge pond surrounded by tall buildings that are squeezed together, side by side. Considering that vehicles cannot access the place, the silence compared to the rest of the city around it is truly astounding, and it even gives prominence to the sound made by those who are bathing in it. The way in which the other pond is presented in the Faculty of Fine Arts is equally surprising. In spite of the fact that its main faรงade and the patio and the stairs that lead to the first floor are the common targets for the admiration of visitors, the pond at the end of the building, which gives a curved shape to the last portion of its wing, is worth a visit, despite the state of neglect it is currently in. As if it was an enormous crater, the water on the bottom is completely covered by plants that hide the sloping sides, to which the architect Islam granted so much importance that he changed the shape of its architecture so that they could be wrapped up by the structure. We can imagine the Fine Arts students painting or walking around this enormous hole, just like people walk around Gol Talab, in an experience where water captivates us in the Spaces of Silence that are described here. The incessant activity of the city and the spaces of silence or calm that we are describing require some middle ground to coexist. They need thresholds that act as transitions between what is inside and what is outside, and which extend the shift between them. This is the case of the stairs in the Ahsan Manzil building. Their size makes it look like the street itself is rising to look for an access to the site. Something similar happens in the Khan Mohammad Mridha mosque [fig.05 on the next page], where apart from the stairs, an elevated platform allows visitors to access the building and creates a colonnade below. An even

more determining example is the overwhelming platform that gives access to the National Assembly, where the architect Louis Kahn included all the services required by such a building in the ground floor [fig. 06 on page 51] and gave the city one of its most impressive spaces, even though visiting is not allowed. In addition, the suffocating heat of the city, compounded by a searing sun and the intense humidity of the river, make it necessary to create intermediate spaces between the inside and the outside, where the shade and ventilation mitigate the temperature somewhat. 49

That is the case of the ambulatory of Curzon Hall, or the outer corridors of the Teacher-Student Centre (TSC), in the university campus. The first one is a corridor that surrounds the perimeter of the entire building on all its floors and creates a temperature buffer between the inside and the outside. The TSC is covered by thin canopies that spread between the buildings and gardens of the complex. In both cases, they are nice and quiet meeting points for students, separated from the hustle and bustle of the city. Another meeting point is the vestibule that gives access to the Ayub Central Hospital, created by architect Louis Kahn, which is yet again a threshold where people can wait or rest in a place between the city and the placidity of the hospital.

fig. 06

Ultimately, the explosion of activity hidden in the complex system of balances of the city, which we can describe as an Informal Space, finds the necessary Spaces of Silence to counterbalance them thanks to the shade, water and thresholds of its buildings. There is, of course, much more than what has been mentioned here, but I trust that the samples I found while roaming around

fig. 05

may be an example to the visitors of Dhaka.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS Adnan Morshed Adnan Morshed is an architect, architectural historian and urbanist. He received his Ph.D. and Master’s Degree in Architecture from MIT and Bachelor’s Degree from the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, where he has also taught. Currently, he teaches at the School of Architecture and Planning, The Catholic University of America, Washington, DC. He is the author of several books and frequently contributes op-eds to various newspapers and online forums.

Héctor Fernández Elorza Héctor Fernández Elorza (Zaragoza 1972) is an architect from the Superior Technical School of Architecture of Madrid (ETSAM). He combines teaching and research with construction. His work has been published and widely exhibited both both in Spain and abroad.

Marian Planelles Spanish architect, urbanist and aid worker. Extreme restlessness has led her to pack her bags over the last 13 years living outside of Spain. She has lived in Germany, Mexico, Holland, Canada, Bolivia, Bulgaria and Bangladesh, countries where she has developed herself academically, professionally and personally. Countries, places, but above all, people and moments which undoubtedly complete one’s transformation and growth, which increase one’s global view of the world, its culture, architecture and development, which make us understand that we are all one. Love.

Salma Abedin Prithi Salma Abedin Prithi’s photographs investigate the vulnerability and psychological struggle of ordinary people. During her graduation in photography at Pathshala South Asian Media Institute, she met different people of Dhaka and realized how sensitive and psychological people are, even when they are going through hard physical realities. Prithi is particularly interested on rituals and women’s iconography.

Tor Torhaug Tor Andreas Torhaug, born in 1957 in Oslo. Resident of Dhaka since September 2016, as accompanying spouse to a Norwegian diplomat. Also a second-year student of the professional photography course at Pathshala South Asian Media Institute in Dhaka. In another life, librarian at Oslo University Library.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Dear reader, we meet at the end of this journey. Thank you for accompanying us. Please, do not hesitate to recommend this book to anyone you think that might enjoy it and feel free to contact the publishers for additional copies in case you cannot easily find them in the bookstores. Dear collaborators, you all know who you are. Thank you for your fantastic work in such a short time. Dear Sadia Rahman. Thank you for the second read. Dear Ambassador Álvaro de Salas, thank you for your continuous support to enhancing the good relations between Spain and Bangladesh and for giving space for cultural cooperation.

Kamalapur Railway Station.

We wish to thank you for having this book in your hands. You probably opened it on a random page, without a plan, in an attempt to satisfy the curiosity that we may have been able to awaken with the haphazardly arranged letters of the title on the cover. You may have wondered whether this is a travel guide, a book of short stories or a collection of essays on the city after which it has been named. Our first objective in this edition is to arouse curiosity among readers and visitors of bookshops and libraries. If we managed to achieve that goal through the graphical layout of the cover, we invite you to roam through its pages in the unknown and enigmatic capital of Bangladesh. Welcome on board.

ISBN 978-84-942342-7-9