About this book
This is the first book devoted to Marina Tabassum, and it arrives as her practice has become one of the most closely watched in contemporary architecture. Tabassum works deliberately small—her Dhaka studio takes on only a handful of projects a year—and the restraint shows in the work: brick handled with real understanding of light, plans that respond to the delta rather than resisting it.
The book follows her projects from 1995 onward, first with URBANA and from 2005 through Marina Tabassum Architects. It runs from early Dhaka commissions such as the Museum of Independence and the Bait Ur Rouf Mosque—winner of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 2016—to Khudi Bari, the mobile modular shelter she developed for communities displaced by flooding and erosion in the Ganges delta and in the Rohingya camps at Cox's Bazar.
Key features
- The first monograph on Tabassum's full body of work
- Public and private projects documented from 1995 to the present
- Extensive coverage of Khudi Bari and its use in displacement contexts
- Contributions from Sean Anderson, Vera Simone Bader, Kareem Ibrahim, Hanif Kara, Andres Lepik, Nondita Correa Mehrotra, Tanzil Shafique, Sarah M. Whiting and Danny Wicaksono
What you'll discover
- How place and memory shape a body of work rooted in Bengal
- Tabassum's handling of light and spirituality, most fully realised at Bait Ur Rouf
- Brick as a material argument about locality, labour and climate
- What it means to keep a practice small by choice
About the author
Marina Tabassum studied at the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology and founded Marina Tabassum Architects in Dhaka in 2005. She received the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 2016 for the Bait Ur Rouf Mosque, designed the Independence Monument of Bangladesh, and designed the Serpentine Pavilion in London in 2025. She has taught at Harvard University Graduate School of Design and the University of Texas at Arlington.
Specifications
- Format: Hardcover
- Dimensions: 243 × 309 mm
- Pages: 288
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9783966800129
- Publisher: ArchiTangle
- Publication date: 28 March 2023
Perfect for
Readers following contemporary practice in South Asia, architects working on climate adaptation and low-cost housing, and anyone drawn to buildings made carefully in difficult places.