Reinforced concrete in Louis Kahn’s National Assembly, Dhaka: Modernity and modernism in Bangladeshi architecture

Louis Kahn is often credited with having in his National Assembly in Dhaka (1962–1983) introduced modern architecture to Bangladesh. In fact at least as technologically advanced construction as any he employed was already in use there. Nor was he the first to use a sophisticated abstract esthetic in what was from 1947 to 1971 East Pakistan. The importance and originality of the National Assembly instead resides in the care with which he built in reinforced concrete and the forms into which he required that it be cast. These were esthetic decisions rooted in a particular theoretical position; they were located outside established modernist practice of the time in both South Asia and the United States. Indeed operating at such a great remove from home may have heightened Kahn’s authority to implement these forms even as it substantially complicated their execution.