Some Thoughts on Maintaining 'Traditional Bengali Culture' in the Apartment Buildings

Abstract

From time immemorial the people of Bangladesh (and East Pakistan) were habituated to live comfortably in the low-rise clustered rural houses made of short-lived materials. After modern Science and Technology came up with superior quality building materials, sophisticated gadgets and the knowledge of architecture (the science and arts of building), in the congested urban cities of Bangladesh they got apartments for living. Even though such houses may safe, long lasting and comfortable, the superiority of this design has to be judged by the extent to which such designs can fulfill the socio-cultural needs of the people and can develop their traditional and cultural qualities. In Bangladesh the closely spaced apartment buildings with no place for the children to play, neighbors to chat and interact, elders to live in the environment they prefer etc. have already been proved as hindrance to the development of the cultural qualities of the land. In the present system of housing delivery in which the developers construct housing for selling to the users as commodity and the architects design the buildings to fulfill the purpose of the developers, there is little scope of fulfilling the people’s needs.

In such a context, the present article presents a solution or a design principle in which the open courtyard, the life of the traditional Bengali house has been endeavored to "re-construct" in the urban context. There is absolutely no architectural, structural or legal problem in its construction. The only problem is economic. Definitely such a solution will be costlier than those designed by the architects for the developers. Thus, the justification of construction of such houses may be found if the maintenance of tradition and development of cultural qualities of the country are given due importance.

Keywords: Culture, Housing, Social-supervision, Domestic Architecture,