To design a timeless and symbolic crest for the Institute of Architects Bangladesh (IAB) that reflects the organization’s dedication to the advancement of architecture and its role in shaping the cultural and built environment of Bangladesh.
We imagine the IAB awards crest as a form of offering and prayer, expressing gratitude for a great accomplishment. The cupped hands in a prayer are an archetypal human gesture of spirituality. We hope to repurpose that gesture to reward somebody and her/his success in enriching our lives with a novel creation. The typical deliverance of a crest or trophy is based on the idea of the transfer of an object from the giver to the receiver. It is a transactional performance, often devoid of deeper human meanings, which we would like to change with our design. In our crest design, we have thought of how two persons—the giver and the receiver— would use their hands in ways that would inspire spiritual connection.
Our crest design is an abstraction of the meeting of two hands, while also symbolizing the most original formation of an architectural space: the meeting of two walls. However, there is no front or back, only fluid space that surrounds the walls. We are creating not walls, but infinite space. This is consistent with our intention of designing the crest, giving it a spiritually-invested act of prayer before the infinity of the creator.
At the same time, we wanted to make our crest both universal and invested in the unique geography and history of our country. The riverine geography of the Bengal delta is abstracted as the liquid lines of timeless flow. Yet, this geography defies and denies the limits of one wall, as it flows to the other, in the end highlighting the abstract nature of space and geography, rather than walls. The history of our country is celebrated by the journey from the Buddhist vihara at Paharpur (8th/9th century) to Bangladesh’s first architect Muzharul Islam’s Faculty of Fine Arts (1953-1956). Two types of wood are used—Burma teak and mahogany—to express a spirit of hybridity in the human experience.