Kashef Mahboob Chowdhury (born 1970) is a Bangladeshi architect based in Dhaka whose work is rooted in history, climate, materials and place. Born in Dhaka, the son of a civil engineer, he grew up in Bangladesh and the Middle East, graduated in architecture from the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology in 1995, and in 2006 attended Glenn Murcutt's masterclass in Sydney. In 1995 he founded the practice URBANA with Marina Tabassum and has led it as principal since 2005. His studio gives projects long periods of research and for years worked only by daylight, a sign of the respect for time that critics have noted in his work.
Read moreShow less
With Tabassum he won the 1997 competition for the Swadhinata Stambha in Dhaka (2013), whose 50-metre tower of stacked glass panels stands where the Pakistani surrender was signed in 1971. The Friendship Centre in Gaibandha (2011) won the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in the 2014–16 cycle. The Gulshan Society Mosque in Dhaka (2017) is a seven-storey white concrete monolith wrapped in a screen that forms the words "La-ilaha-illallah" in Kufic script.
