Women in Architecture
Marina Tabassum: Architecture as an Act of Grace and Resistance
In the fast-paced era of global architecture, few names summon the same quiet confidence as Marina Tabassum. Architect, yes, but more notably, she is a philosopher of space—a visionary who understands that the spaces we inhabit are not just structures, but carriers of identity, memory, and resilience. From Bangladesh’s flood-ridden villages to the Harvard corridors, Tabassum has paved the way that remaps the potential of architecture if it is rooted in history, empathy, and the environment.
This vision brought her onto TIME magazine’s 2024 100 Most Influential People list just recently. She was named an “Innovator”—a testament to her deeply human research on climate-resilient architecture and her tireless advocating for sustainability and cultural responsiveness in design.
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A Life Built in Layers
Marina Tabassum was born in Dhaka, Bangladesh. She came of age in a country perpetually balancing between goodness and danger. She graduated from the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) in 1995 with an architecture degree. Shortly thereafter, she co-founded URBANA, an office that began to investigate how architecture could be employed by communities rather than capital alone.
In 2005, she set out on her own to form Marina Tabassum Architects (MTA)—a tiny, research-driven practice based on her belief that great architecture should grow out of the earth and the lives it touches. She avoids spectacle, avoids the height competition and glass walls. Instead, she turns to earth, to brick, to air and light.
Bait Ur Rouf Mosque: A Sacred Space in Simplicity
Nowhere is Tabassum’s philosophy more concisely realized than at the 2012 Bait Ur Rouf Mosque, in a modest residential neighborhood on the outskirts of Dhaka. Commissioned as a gift to her grandmother, this mosque defies the conventional vocabulary of Islamic architecture—no minarets, no domes, no gold filigree calligraphy, no marble.
Instead, it is a simple, brick-clad cube left to the mercy of the elements. The dappled light that filters through geometric perforations, the cross-ventilation that naturally ventilates the prayer hall, and the earthy color scheme all make it a sanctuary of simplicity. It was awarded the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 2016, one of the most prestigious awards in the profession.
What overwhelmed the award committee was the manner in which the mosque, built with meager resources, lifted the spirit. It proved that profound beauty could be the result of restraint, that architecture could be religious without spectacle.
Building for a Drowning World
Marina Tabassum’s work is not confined to the symbolic or to the sacred—she is highly practical, highly political. In a country like Bangladesh, where climate change is not an abstraction but a lived everyday reality, she has taken on the urgent task of designing climate refugee housing.
Her Khudi Bari initiative—light, pre-fabricated bamboo and corrugated metal houses—is a rebuff to the increasing displacement caused by floods and erosion in the south delta. Her homes are affordable, easy to build, and mobile—built for dignity, not handouts.
That is what caught TIME’s attention. In a world hastening to respond to environmental collapse, Tabassum is already building futures—strong, rooted, and responsive.
“Her practice responds to one of the greatest challenges of our time—designing for climate change-displaced people,” TIME said in their 2024 profile of her.
A Global Voice, Rooted in Dhaka
While her work has taken her from Harvard to Zurich to teach, Marina Tabassum remains rooted in Dhaka. She works out of a tiny studio not by accident, but by design. Amidst a global culture obsessed with expansion, she wants to be close to the process. All her work begins in listening: to the ground, to people, to history.
She has also served as Academic Director at the Bengal Institute for Architecture, Landscapes and Settlements and visiting professor at BRAC University, encouraging the next generation of South Asian architects to find their strength in local knowledge and indigenous forms.
In 2021, she became the first South Asian woman to receive the Soane Medal from the Sir John Soane’s Museum in London. The roll call of past winners is a Who’s Who of architectural giants like Kenneth Frampton and Denise Scott Brown. The honor cemented her place in the global pantheon—but hers is a distinctive voice.
Breaking the Mold: A Woman at the Helm
Architecture has always been a man’s job, at least in South Asia. Marina Tabassum is trying to change that in deed as much as in example. Her own practice is manned and maintained by women; her teaching emphasizes empowerment over technique. She teaches new female architects to trust their gut, their roots, their story.
In her own gentle insurrection, she has declined to follow the usual corporate formula. No glass skyscrapers, no heartless property investments. Instead, she selects projects that have cultural, environmental, or humanitarian significance—spaces that count, that serve, that last.
A Living Legacy of Grace
Marina Tabassum’s architecture isn’t just buildings—it is acts of hope, of defiance, of beauty. Whether she is designing a mosque full of filtered light or a house that might be swept away by floodwaters, her buildings ask one singular question: What does it mean to care?
Her listing on TIME’s 100 Most Influential People is not a recognition of her talent alone—it’s a recognition of her values. In an era of ephemeral fashion and loud assertions, she builds with humility, with forbearance, with purpose.
“Architecture,” she says, “should be an act of service—something that uplifts, shelters, and inspires.”
In Marina Tabassum, the world has gained not only an architect but a compass.
Sources
TIME 100 Most Influential People 2024 – Marina Tabassum
Aga Khan Award for Architecture – Bait Ur Rouf Mosque
Soane Museum – Soane Medal 2021: Marina Tabassum
The Financial Express – Tabassum’s TIME 100 Recognition
