Rafiq Azam

A mid-career monograph for Bangladeshi master architect Rafiq Azam focusing on the urban transformation of Dhaka, with a foreword by renowned architect and historian Kenneth B. Frampton.

Acclaimed architect Rafiq Azam (b. 1963) has been instrumental over the course of his storied career in transforming the urban landscape in Bangladesh’s capital of Dhaka. Azam’s signature style finds harmony between cultural and spiritual traditions, local craftsmanship and materials, and the country’s complex natural environment. No design element is too small to be poetically incorporated into his buildings and city planning projects. His attention to light and shadow, bodies of water, indigenous vegetation, and air flow shows the influence of Bengali mysticism.

In 1995, Azam founded his own internationally renowned architectural firm, SHATOTTO “Architecture for Green Living,” dedicated to creating responsible buildings while educating different community stakeholders to value environmentally conscious innovation and sustainable practices.

This groundbreaking volume contains Azam’s most significant public and private projects in Dhaka, alongside his other major South Asian projects in Malaysia and Bhutan. Illustrations accompanied by insightful commentary sit alongside an extensive conversation with Azam on decades of design thinking and large-scale, community-focused practice in the “new” Bangladesh.