Adnan Zillur Morshed

THE GRUDGING URBANIST

Adnan Zillur Morshed, PhD, is an architect, architectural historian, urbanist, and public intellectual. He is a professor of architecture and architectural history at the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC, and executive director of the Centre for Inclusive Architecture and Urbanism at BRAC University. Morshed received his Ph.D. and Master’s in architecture from MIT, and BArch from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, where he also taught. He was a 2018 TEDxFoggyBottom speaker at George Washington University. He is the author of multiple books; among them, Impossible Heights: Skyscrapers, Flight, and the Master Builder (University Minnesota Press, 2015), Oculus: A Decade of Insights into Bangladeshi Affairs (University Press Limited, 2012), DAC, Dhaka in 25 Buildings (Altrim Publishers, Barcelona, 2017), and River Rhapsody: A Museum of Rivers and Canals (BRAC University, 2018).

Is human civilisation at an inflection point?

Our brains are being reprogrammed to look for the easiest solutions to our most vexing social and political questions.

Is there an architecture for marginal communities?

Our experience of designing Brac regional offices across rural Bangladesh.

How to reclaim flyovers as people-centric ‘green’ infrastructure

Characterised by a culture of ad hocism, these valuable urban lands below elevated road infrastructures rarely reach their full potential.

Forging a Bengali identity through modernist architecture

After completing his Bachelor of Architecture degree at the University of Oregon, Eugene, in June 1952, the 29-year-old Muzharul Islam (1923-2012) returned home to find a postcolonial Pakistan embroiled in acrimonious politics of national identity.

The Louis Kahn mystique: 20 years after ‘My Architect’

The legend of Louis Kahn remains strong.

How we should design the next generation of parks

Do we need the 24/7 hustle and bustle of Dhaka – the cacophonous dramas of this sleepless city – reproduced in its parks too?

Heatwaves, global warming, and the ethics of our cities

We must rethink how cities are planned, designed, and administered to combat the adverse effects of both the heat island problem and climate change.

What makes great research?

Research cannot flourish in an environment where critical enquiry is severely discouraged.

March 3, 2023
March 3, 2023

What makes a good teacher in the 21st century?

Today, the question of being a 'good teacher' generates a new vernacular.

February 10, 2023
February 10, 2023

A dangerous time for history

Governments are trying to control what could or could not be taught about their past.

December 31, 2022
December 31, 2022

Can the Metro Rail be a Great Equalizer?

A “new” type of urban mobility comes to fruition in the month of the country’s emancipation

December 16, 2022
December 16, 2022

Footpaths of Bangladesh: Our complicated relationship with walking

Walking, sadly, is not part of our shared value system, and there are many reasons behind this.

November 10, 2022
November 10, 2022

Researching Rural Transformation 2.0 in Bangladesh

We need new research methodologies to understand the complex nature of the rural change in Bangladesh in the last two decades.

October 31, 2022
October 31, 2022

Mid-sized cities are our new urban frontier

A resilient and adjustable urban development policy for mid-sized cities is necessary to decentralise Dhaka.

September 15, 2022
September 15, 2022

Rural Bangladesh needs next-generation village roads

The streets of rural Bangladesh should value the safety and wellbeing of its users.

August 16, 2022
August 16, 2022

How has rural Bangladesh transformed in the last 20 years?

Ever since the 1980s-90s, our typical perception of a rural village has been changing.

August 5, 2022
August 5, 2022

Understanding Rural Transformation 2.0 in Bangladesh

The traditional mental image of rural Bangladesh that we have is no longer a reality.

July 14, 2022
July 14, 2022

Bangladeshi architecture at the MoMA in New York: What it means for us

The exhibition can serve as a potent reminder for our ethical responsibility to preserve the mid-century buildings that tell our stories.

push notification