Protibesh © BUET 9 (2004) 52-54 Undoing Heroicization of Louis Kahn in Bangladesh Shayer Ghafur Associate Professor Department of Architecture Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, Dhaka-1000. E-mail: sghafur@bangla.net Images of Louis I. Kahn’s Assembly Building—an icon of contemporary Bangladesh—go beyond architecture to symbolize democracy, human rights, and national aspirations. Lately, Kahn’s creation in Sher-e-Bangla Nagar has been recurrent news on the media, albeit for odd reasons, concerning additions to his allegedly complete master plan. Few would argue that the controversies and split opinions observed in this case have put us on crossroads regarding our attitude to and dealing with Kahn. Perhaps this is the time we should disassociate ourselves from our ‘object’ orientation to Kahn’s work to ‘subject’ premise, especially on our relationship with Kahn. With this subject premise in mind, I submit the following critical reflection on local architecture’s dealing of Kahn. I invite responses to my views to generate a constructive debate. I would first touch upon the historical context to start outlining my case. Modern architecture, as a distinct movement, had originated in the Western Europe in the early 1900s. Modern architecture had given mandate to its following architects to make a radical break with the past or revolt against orthodoxy to implement his idealized vision of society. "Modern architecture", writes noted architectural historian William Curtis (1982), "was the expression of a variety of new social visions challenging the status quo and suggesting alternative possibilities for a way of life". With this heroic intention, modern masters like Le Corbusier, Watler Gropius, Mies van de Rohe had changed the course of architecture, and possibly the way of life these architecture promoted, in their own unique ways. Subsequently, heroic myths were created that emphasized master architect's persona over his (architectural) product. This 'heroicization of architect' had been a western phenomenon with all its attendant implications unique only to the west. But later, the emergence and implications of ‘heroicization of architect’ became different in developing countries for the socio-political context in which high profile foreign architects had been hired, for instances, in India, Bangladesh, Turkey or Brazil. When Ataturk in Ankara and Nehru in Chandigarh were instrumental in giving a secular vision for a new city, if not a society, we see a different story in East Pakistan. History tells us that a measure of political compromise, and not a vision per se, initiated the Second Capital Complex—Sher-e-Bangla Nagar—in Dhaka. De-colonization of the Indian sub-continent had led to the import of modern architecture in East Pakistan--now Bangladesh--since early 1950s. Kahn's planning and design of the Sher-e-Bangla Nagar in Dhaka has placed him higher than other foreign architects of this period and beyond. In addition, his work has situated Bangladesh in world architecture forever. Kahn was destined to become a hero the moment his employer—the then Pakistan government—had accepted west's portrayal of an architect-hero to build a better world from scratch. Initially, Kahn's mystic persona and self-referential ideology had gained approval from a local audience, seldom exposed to modern architecture. Later we note that Kahn was deeply engaged, among others, in espousing social vision for laying out a spatial foundation of future society in Dhaka. An observation is worth quoting in this context--"He [Kahn] believed that the only good society was a genuinely democratic one, and that architecture could, indeed must, sustain and nourish democratic values" (Goldhagan, 2001, 2). One would have little doubt that Kahn's architecture in Dhaka resonates as a priori for a democratic society. However, to what extent and how his architecture--the assembly building complex--has actually reflected (and nurtured)