DHAKA, BANGLADESH

Dhaka (spelled as Dacca until 1983), the capital of Bangladesh, with a 1999 population of
9.3 million in an area of 1,528 square kilometers, is one of the densest cities of the world.
Situated in the deltaic plain of Bengal, in the midst of a maze of rivers and canals, it is the
last big urban stop on the great Gangetic stream as it cascades into the sea. The name
Dhaka has often been used synonymously, and rather incorrectly, with Louis Kahn’s
Capital Complex project that forms only a precinct—a significant one—in this
burgeoning metropolis.
The literal meaning of the name Dhaka is “concealed.” The enigmatic name might
have originated from the “dhak” trees that are presumed to have been common in the area
or the renowned 16th-century Dhakeswari Temple. Dhaka went through waves of decay
and growth, from sporadic settlements datable to 10th century AD to a Mughal provincial
capital in the 17th century and a deteriorated condition in the 18th c. until its
consolidation as a thriving city in late 19th century The strategic location of Dhaka in the
fertile and riverine land-mass of Bengal, once known for the fabled fabric muslin, and
later for the world’s largest jute production, made it the prime city in the region. As the
capital city of Bangladesh, Dhaka is now an administrative, educational, commercial, and
industrial center that includes the highest concentration of export-oriented garment
industries.
Like similar cities undergoing rapid transformations, Dhaka is also a city of social,
economic, and developmental contrasts. Despite bearing the typical afflictions of socalled
developing cities (overpopulation, pollution, traffic problems, housing crisis, etc.),
Dhaka is the center of an exuberant Bengali culture expressed in its literary and artistic
life and various urban rituals and festivities.
Once located on the northern banks of the river Buriganga, Dhaka has grown largely
toward the north, being delimited on all other sides by rivers and mostly fertile
agricultural land subject to heavy flood. The extent of greater Dhaka now comprises the
river port of Naryanganj in the south and the industrial town of Tongi and Gazipur on the
north. Although most of Dhaka city is still on a higher level, population increase in recent
times has driven people to build on the low-lying flood-prone areas.
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The city is now constituted of roughly five distinct urban morphologies: (1) the socalled
old city, the original settlement that grew along the river Buriganga and later
developed into a thriving Mughal city, with its jostling mixed-use buildings, narrow,
winding streets, and legendary neighborhood (moho lla) traditions; (2) the so-called colonial part,
the site of new governmental, cultural, institutional, and residential buildings, especially
around the Ramna area in a bungalow and garden typology; (3) post-1947 developments
of a mixture of regulated and planned residential areas, and sporadic commercial and
institutional pockets; and (4) vast amorphous areas of semi- and unplanned growth, often
with inadequate infrastructure, symptomatic of planning incapacity in addressing
demographic and economic pressures. The fifth morphology is that of the exclusive
National Capital Complex, better known as Sherebanglanagar that represents Kahn’s
vision of a government and civic complex.
The unassuming status of Dhaka belies its substantial role in the history of the Indian
subcontinent. Historically, Dhaka has experienced paradoxical political orientation: On
the one hand, it was the base of a Muslim ideology that led to the formation of Pakistan,
and on the other hand, it was home to a Bengali nationalism that eventually led to the
breakup of Pakistan and the formation of Bangladesh.
A strong Muslim culture was established with the consolidation of Mughal
rule over Bengal in 1596, making it the eastern edge of a vast empire ruled
from Delhi and Agra. For the nearly 150 years that Bengal was a Mughal
province, the capital vacillated between Dhaka, Rajmahal, and
Murshidabad, and with that fluctuated the economic and cultural spirit of
the city. Dhaka went into a slow decline when it finally lost its capital
status in 1704, as the Mughal administration left town with all its pomp
and resources.
The slump was deepened when the English wrested control of Bengal (1757) and established Calcutta as the base of their
trading outfit. The economy of Dhaka was particularly hurt when its legendary m us lin
production was literally destroyed by English trade and tax machinations. Population
would decrease drastically (from 450,000 in 1765 to 69,000 in 1838), and buildings
would be overrun by vegetation. Dhaka would not gain a new momentum until the
beginning of the 20th century under different English policies.
Since the 19th century Dhaka and Calcutta have played out a sort of tale of two cities
in the history and psyche of modern Bengal. As Dhaka came to be seen, and in some
ways projected itself, as the bearer of a Muslim culture, Calcutta became, despite or
because of a stronger English presence, a Hindu-dominant city. The partition of Bengal
into two provinces in 1905 that established Dhaka as the capital of East Bengal, again
annulled in 1911, triggered a nationalist uprising that was to be a basis of the Indian
independence movement. It was in Dhaka that the Muslim League took root as a political
party in 1906 whose leadership was eventually to go to the Bombay-based M.A.Jinnah in
the articulation of a separate state for Muslims. That political program was realized in the
partitioning of India and the formation of Pakistan in 1947. Pakistan was to be constituted
of two provinces, separated physically by India, where Dhaka became the capital of the
eastern province. The argument for a Capital Complex in Dhaka came up as a result of
this improbable condition when the government decided to transfer the parliamentary
business between the central capital in Islamabad in West Pakistan (designed as a brandnew
city by Doxiadis) and Dhaka (where a “Second Capital” was to be built). The defeat
of the Pakistan Army in Dhaka during the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971
represented the ascendance of a Bengali nationalist ideology and the establishment of the
city as the capital of an independent country.
Dhaka has been described variously as “the city of mosques,” with every conceivable
neighborhood hosting a structure or two, and the city with “ba-anno bazaar, tepanno goli”
(52 bazaars and 53 alleys), referring to the intricate network of winding streets forming
the fabric of the old city. Although the profusion of mosques bespeak of a predominant
Muslim culture since the Mughal era, there are 8th-century Buddhist ruins in the Savar
area and various Hindu structures, including the well-known 16th-century Dhakeswari
Temple.
Although Mughal building activity focused primarily on forts, katras (special dwellings),
and mosques, residential neighborhoods of that time established morphology of dense,
cellular buildings and courtyards along commercially active streets, traces of which can
still be seen in parts of the old city (such as Shakhari Bazar, Islampur). Buildings of the
colonial era were devoted mostly to administrative and institutional types that shifted
stylistically between European neoclassical and quasi-Mughal modes. The typology of
the bungalow in a garden setting became established at that time as a mode of urban
dwelling that is followed even today in planning strategies despite the densification of the
city.
Modern architecture was introduced in the city by two buildings that received
immediate iconic status when they were built in 1954–56: The Bangladesh College of
Arts and Crafts and the Public Library (presently Dhaka University Library), both
designed by Muzharul Islam. These and other distinctive buildings, including the Science
Laboratories (1959), N.I.P.A. Building (1969), buildings for Jahangirnagar University
(1969), the National Archives (1979), and dozens of residences, established an
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international reputation of Muzharul Islam as a committed architect attempting to
reconcile modernity with place and climate. A few foreign architects also contributed
toward the process of establishing a modern architectural paradigm for Dhaka in such
projects as the Kamlapur Railway Station by the American architect Robert Bouighy
(1961), the Teachers-Students Center at Dhaka University by the Greek architect-planner
Constantin Doxiadis (1963), and of course, the Parliament complex by Louis Kahn
(1963–84). Architects of later generations have pursued diverse interests, exemplified in
such notable projects as the Savar Monument by Mainul Hossain (1976), S.O.S. Youth
Village by Raziul Ahsan (1984), housing complexes by Bashirul Haq and by Uttam Saha,
and the Liberation Monument by Urbana Architects (2000). Although thoughtful and
creative architectural work prevails in Dhaka, the city has seen very few compelling
models of large-scale urban development.
The monumental and epochal architecture of Kahn’s Capital Complex that put Dhaka
on the international architectural map is a 1,000-acre site devoted to the parliament
complex, government offices and residences, and a host of institutional buildings. The
Parliament Building, the crown of the Complex, along with adjoining brick buildings
presented a stunningly new and yet mythopoeic vocabulary for the city and the region. At
the same time, the buildings in an environment of lakes, parks, gardens, and orchards
offered a vision of a deltaic urban composition. It is perhaps poignant that when the city
has moved away, both physically and strategically, from its deltaic roots the Capital
Complex curiously evokes that condition.

DEUTSCHER WERKBUND

Recognized as a distinct group on the occasion of the Third German Exhibition of
Applied Art in Dresden in 1906, the Deutscher Werkbund (German Arts and Crafts
Society) was an association of artists, architects, industrialists, and merchants contending
with the revolutionary changes in the economic, social, and cultural fabric of 19thcentury
Europe and America. Founders of the Werkbund included Berlin architect
Hermann Muthesius; Friedrich Naumann, author and Arbeitskommis s ar (Director of Work) for the Berlin
“industrial combine” Allgemeine Elektricitäts Gesellschaft (AEG); and Karl Schmidt,
director of the Dresdner Werkstätten für Handwerkskunst (Dresden Workshop for
Manual Art). Muthesius and Naumann authored two books that provided much of the
Werkbund’s platform: Muthesius’s Das Englische Haus (1904; The English House), a critical overview of
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what he perceived as an ideal model for a native craft culture, and Naumann’s Die Kunst im Mas chinenzeitalter (1906;
Art in the Epoch of the Machine), a treatise on the role of craft and industrial production.
Initial membership of the Werkbund included 12 architects and 12 industrial firms.
Architects included such important figures as Peter Behrens, Theodor Fischer, Josef
Hoffmann, J.M.Olbrich, Bruno Paul, and Paul Schultze-Naumburg; associated firms
included both associations and traditional firms, such as Peter Bruckmann and Söhne,
Kunstdruckerei Kunstlerbund Karlsruhe, and the Wiener Werkstätte. Yet the Deutscher
Werkbund was not only a recognized organization but also a coalescence of myriad
points of view into a movement—a movement that continues to resonate across the full
array of contemporary design disciplines.
With the industrial revolution, the traditional roles of art and architecture—modes of
cultural production that had been heretofore understood as institutionalized extensions of
state and economic power—were increasingly called into question. Gottfried Semper, a
19th-century Dresden architect, teacher, and political exile, wrote two books on the
influence of sociopolitical conditions on style that were to become seminal works for
members of the Deutscher Werkbund: Wis s ens chaft, Industrie und Kunst (1852; Science, Industry and Art), a treatise
examining industrial production and mass consumption on the entire field of applied art
and architecture, and Der Stil in den technis chen und tekton is chen Künsten oder praktis che Äs thetik (1860–63; Style in Industrial and Structural Arts or
Practical Aesthetics). Coupled with contemporary scientific, economic, and industrial
developments, Semper’s writings—publications that were themselves influenced by
anthropology and the natural sciences—provided much of the impetus for a rethinking
the role of art and architecture in modern German society during the 19th and 20th
centuries. Accordingly, members of the Deutscher Werkbund recognized that the shifting
attitudes toward the arts and crafts were not merely based on stylistic motivations but
were the result of a more generalized critique of cultural production and its place within
society. Thus, individuals associated with the Werkbund recognized the social
responsibility of the artist and architect. This led to the Werkbund’s acknowledgment (in
the footsteps of 19th-century English theorists Augustus Welby Pugin, William Morris,
and John Ruskin) of the significance, indeed power, of a coherent, exemplary range of
industrial and consumer products on the world stage.
Germany (a loose federation of duchies and nation-states until 1866) had long suffered
from the perception that its art and architecture exposed a general ignorance of tasteful
“culture.” Although Germany was traditionally recognized for the manufacture of
efficient, practical, and cost-effective goods and products (most notably its instruments of
war), these products were usually criticized—often rightfully—as being of inferior design
quality. The Werkbund sought to correct this perception, if not reality, by seeking to
broadly inculcate a seamless marriage between economy, form, and artistic taste. This
new vision—as a practice and an idea—was referred to by the term Zweckkunst, a word that
translates literally as “functional art.” As a new approach to design, the application of
principles derived from Zweckkunst would better not only consumer products for use by the
Germans themselves but also competitive products for export purposes. In promoting the
nation’s manufactured goods, the Werkbund also sought to articulate a fundamental
revision of the nation’s Kultur (culture). Germany was to be perceived no longer as a
militarist—if efficient—nation devoid of the cultural élan of the rest of Europe but as a
participating, sophisticated equal on the world stage. Thus, the strength, wealth, and spirit
(in accordance with Semper, among others) was implicitly, if not explicitly, rendered by
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the products that it produced. (It should be noted that this faith in domestic products was
not specific to Germany but exemplified a more general trend throughout Europe and the
Americas whereby capitalist economic models for industrial production and economic
development were increasingly seen as extensions of national culture.)
In the 1910s, Walter Gropius, who, with fellow German architect Adolf Meyer,
advanced some of the newer techniques and materials in their architectural work of the
period, expressed the need for Germany’s advance of the arts and architecture as key to
its general economic development. In so doing, Gropius also extended the Werkbund’s
vision of a vernacular aesthetic bearing the true spirit of German Kultur: “Compared to other
European countries, Germany has a clear lead in the aesthetics of factory building.”
Stating that America was the “motherland of industry,” Gropius pointed to the industrial
architecture of the Americas, “whose majesty outdoes even the best German work of this
order. The grain silos of Canada and South America, the coal bunkers of the leading
railroads and the newest work halls of the North American industrial trusts, can bear
comparison, in their overwhelming monumental power, with the buildings of ancient
Egypt.” These “humane and aesthetic sensibilities” (Banham, 1980, 80) were not
completely in line with all members of the Werkbund, in particular Hermann Muthesius,
the architect who would become the de facto spokesman of the Deutscher Werkbund for
a period of time, setting the stage for the Werkbund’s internal divisions.
Documents and activities of the Werkbund serve to chronicle the emergence and
subsequent development of the organization’s approach to the allied arts and architecture,
including the inherent conflicts of the Werkbund’s position. In 1907, Muthesius
published his “Aims of the Werkbund” on behalf of the society. His earlier reports on
British domestic architecture (1904–07), showcasing the advances of the English Arts
and Crafts movement for his German audience, along with his advo cacy of engineering
and standardization in projects such as the Eiffel Tower, station halls, and bicycle wheels,
had already lent Muthesius notoriety, if not credibility, among his peers. In “Aims of the
Werkbund,” Muthesius proposes what may be regarded as a “call to arms” for artists,
architects, and their associates, an argument that he supports with the suggestion that
cultural production has not enjoined the revolutionary changes of the day and that it is not
only the social but also the spiritual responsibility of his compatriots to embrace change.
Indeed, Muthesius not only emphasized the material and technical problems confronted
by his contemporaries but also heralded a “spiritual purpose” for the arts and architecture,
a purpose that extended to the economy as a whole—what Frederic Schwarz (1996)
refers to as the pursuit of a “spiritualized economy” (75). Accordingly, architectural
culture “remains the true index of a nation’s culture as a whole…without a total respect
for form, culture is unthinkable, and formlessness is synonymous with lack of culture.
Form is a higher spiritual need” (Conrads, 27). In addition, Muthesius saw his project for
the arts and architecture as a logical expression of Germany’s vocation, a nation that
enjoyed, according to Muthesius, its “reputation for the most strict and exact organisation
in her businesses, heavy industry, and state institutions of any country in the world.” For
Muthesius, the will to “pure Form” (elaborated as Zweckkunst, the synthesis of form and function)
was an extension of the nation’s “military discipline” and, consequently, a manifestation
of its inners te Wesen (inner being).
Seeking to counter Muthesius’ arguments in “Aims of the Werkbund,” the Belgian
architect Henry van de Velde joined Muthesius in propounding what became the
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internally contradictory document “Werkbund Theses and Antitheses”—irreconcilable
differences that both architects expressed publicly during the proceedings of the
Werkbund Congress of 1914. Whereas Muthesius proclaimed “concentration and
standardization as the aims of Werkbund design” (a statement implicitly supporting the
collective project of the design arts, including architecture), his colleague, van de Velde,
defined the essential nature of the argument as a struggle between two opposing ideals:
“Type ( Typsierung) versus Individuality.” Although it is true that van de Velde was espousing what
was already a rear-guard position by suggesting that artists are first and foremost
“creative individualists,” the argument did not end with the imminent success of a
standardized economy. Dispensing with any attempt at dialectical fusion, both architects
wrote several axioms supporting their stances regarding standardization and creative
freedom. Presented on the occasion of the first great exhibition of the Deutscher
Werkbund in Cologne in July 1914, the document, coupled with the ideologically diverse
designs for the exhibition (as in Peter Behrens’s Neoclassicism versus Gropius and
Meyer’s model office building and factory, Faguswerk), continued to affect discussions
surrounding cultural production and arts and design education well into the future. It
should be noted, however, that both Muthesius and van de Velde maintained a belief in
the spiritual nature of cultural production, but Muthesius sought a universal set of values,
reflected by a dominance of “good taste.” It is also significant that Gropius, founder of
the Staatliches Bauhaus Weimar in 1919—a program that, not incidentally, was housed in
the building where van de Velde had directed his own state-funded School of Arts and
Crafts—partook in the discussions surrounding the aims and directions of the Werkbund.
These same ideological differences would have a bearing on the formulation and
development of Gropius’s Bauhaus pedagogical programs as well.
The Deutscher Werkbund Austellung (Exhibition) of 1927 in Stuttgart, also referred to
as the Weissenhofsiedlung Stuttgart, exhibited built prototypes of experimental housing.
The exhibit, including houses and apartments designed by an international array of
architects (Le Corbusier, Mart Stam, J.J.P.Oud, Mies van der Rohe, Hans Scharoun, and
Gropius, among others), represented the maturity of the Werkbund’s vision. The 1927
exhibition underlined the transition of the Deutscher Werkbund from an organization to a
movement, a movement no longer confined to Germany but international in scope.