Architect

A Bangladeshi architect who is internationally renowned for her constructions combining architectural innovation with the history and nature of the place where they are built, she studied at the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) and presently heads her own firm Marina Tabassum Architects (MTA). She has focused on projects in Bangladesh, the land of her birth, since she believes that the architect can only innovate on the basis of knowledge of, and giving continuity to the space of intervention.

She has received major awards for her work, among them the 2016 Aga Khan Award for Architecture for the design of Bait-ur-Rouf Mosque in Dhaka and the 2001 Architect of the Year prize in New Delhi. Marina Tabassum’s prestige is even more exceptional when one considers that there are fewer than twenty women working as architects in Bangladesh. She has taught in courses and lectured at Dhaka, Harvard and Newcastle universities and is also Director of the Academic Programme at the Bengal Institute for Architecture, Landscapes and Settlements in Dhaka.