Louis Kahn in Dhaka: ruin as method

The capitol complex in Dhaka, Bangladesh, designed by Louis Kahn, resists a neat positioning in architectural history. An iconic example of American modern architecture in a non-Western, newly independent context, this project straddles binary yet interdependent categories: East–West, Pakistan–Bangladesh, modern–postmodern. If Kahn represents a transitional figure within twentieth-century architectural history, then at Dhaka this liminal status is uniquely amplified. This thesis examines the particular manifestation, in the Dhaka commission, of the architectural tropes that are central to Kahn’s attempt to rethink the meaning of a modern monument during the late 1950s and 1960s. The research method is informed by recent trends in critical historiography, in which non-Western, typically postcolonial, modernism is identified as a key agent in the internal critique, revision and ongoing development of mid-twentieth century modernism. The capitol complex of Dhaka presents an important yet hitherto unexamined case for this critical perspective. This occurs through a historiographic analysis of the literature on the project combined with a close architectural reading of the building design. The reception of the project includes distinct and at times contradictory interpretations. It is seen as a key work of American modern architecture, as a precursor to postmodernism, as a neo-colonial practice and as an expression of Bangladeshi modernism. This thesis investigates how these diverse readings are differentiated in the critical literature, yet linked through the metaphor of the “ruin”. The “ruin” serves both as a critical lens for historiography and as a framework for a close reading of the building. This metaphor underlines the tension between form and use identified in this project. The architectural analysis explores how this tension is inherent in the capitol complex across three scales: the building in relation to the city, the thresholds within the building, and the relationship between “centre” and “periphery” ...