Kashef Chowdhury
Friday, 25 January 2019

A lecture on the occasion of the Aedes exhibition opening Faraway So Close. A Journey to the Architecture of Kashef Chowdhury / URBANA, Bangladesh

Cyclone Shelter in the Coastal Belt of Bay of Bengal. © Kashef Chowdhury

With this first comprehensive European exhibition, Aedes Architecture Forum presents the work of Kashef Chowdhury/URBANA from Bangladesh, who received the prestigious Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 2016 for the Friendship Centre on the flood plains of Gaibandha in northern Bangladesh. With further projects such as the Gulshan Society Mosque in Dhaka and the Cyclone Shelter in Kuakata, he gained widespread international acclaim. Careful arrangement of structures in areas marked by extreme climatic conditions, combined with local building techniques and materials, Kashef Chowdhury’s buildings are exemplary of an architecture that serves society with radical simplicity and poetry. With an atmospheric installation, the exhibition curated by Niklaus Graber and Andreas Ruby, invites visitors on a journey to Bangladesh and the architectural worlds of URBANA.

PROGRAMME
Welcome
Hans-Jürgen Commerell, Director, ANCB The Aedes Metropolitan Laboratory, Berlin

Introduction
Niklaus Graber, Curator, Graber & Steiger Architekten, Lucerne and
Andreas Ruby, Curator, S AM Swiss Architecture Museum, Berlin/Basel

Keynote Lecture
Kashef Chowdhury, URBANA, Bangladesh