People visiting Dhaka from other cities of Southasia will often have wondered at the fascinating one-of-a-kind modernist edifice that is the Bangladesh Sangsad Bhawan, where Parliament sits. On a recent visit, I arrived with my camera and made a parikrama (circumambulation) like one does around a temple, and soaked in the magnificence of this architectural wonder.
The Sangsad Bhawan was built by Louis I Kahn, one of the greatest architects of the 20th century. Kahn was born in Estonia in 1901 to a Jewish family that migrated to the US in the early part of the last century. The young man paid for his architecture studies by playing the piano to accompany silent films in cinema halls. The dexterous pianist's hands were eventually designing groundbreaking buildings, which changed the direction of American architecture. But the best of Kahn's buildings were to be found not in the US but elsewhere. One of his more unusual creations is the Indian Institute of Management building in Ahmedabad. And unarguably his greatest work is the Parliament complex in Dhaka.
The building was conceptualised long before Bangladesh was born. It was a martial law regime of Pakistan that decided in 1959 to build the second seat of the National Parliament. Kahn made preliminary designs for the Pakistani authorities, and was formally commissioned in 1962. Construction began in 1964, was interrupted by the 1971 War of Independence, and finally completed according to the original plans in 1982. By then Kahn was already gone – he died in 1974.
Much of Kahn's work reflects a deeply intuitive understanding that he associated with the East. In a postcard addressed to his young son from on board a PIA flight, Kahn wrote that for the West, architecture is about frames, whereas for the East. it is an expression of joy.