"ECHOES FOR EMANCIPATION"
Honorable Mention winning project in ArchTwist Idea Competition "Spirit of Nazrul".
“I am a poet of the present, and not a prophet of the future. My birth in this country and this society does not mean that I shall remain constricted and confined to them. No, I belong to all countries and to the entirety of humanity.”
—Kazi Nazrul Islam
Of course, among his four thousand works, not all call out for a common humanity, but it is because of his strife for change that Kazi Nazrul Islam came to be known as the “Rebel Poet”. But majority of todays generation know Nazrul just as a Bengali Rebel Poet and hardly aware of the wide-ranging oeuvre of Nazrul’s work. So, to create an architecture that will represents Nazrul’s spirit and will be an inspiration to new generation, we focused on the main ideological core of Nazrul’s works, which is “Emancipation”.
We selected the “Mausoleum of National Poet Kazi Nazrul Islam”, which is located just near the main heart of Dhaka University campus, TSC as to dedicate our design which will be acting as reminder to young generation the presence of Nazrul’s spirit. As this site is a scared place, here we design the installation in such a way which will blend in with the existing setting. After entering the Mausoleum complex ,one finds himself Infront of a green buffer with areca nut trees. A circular metal ring engraved with lines from Nazrul’s masterpiece poem Bidrohee (The Rebel) is hanged from these areca nut trees. Form this ring, metal chains painted in white colour are hanged and when wind will blow these metal chains will create echoes which will act as the reminder to the visitor that we may be free from oppression now but the chains remains still there to caged us anytime.
Finally we tried to create a space that will constantly serve as a beacon for Nazrul, signalling his long for Emancipation by the Echoes of metal Chains
**This was a team entry. The team members are Prosenjit Biswas and Pushpita Acharjee.
