Architecture and shopping malls

By Mawaz, Dhaka
12 October 2004, 18:00 PM
As a roving urbanite, now settled in over-developed Dhaka (since schooldays in old 'Dacca' decades ago), in under-developed Bangladesh (with the highest density of population in the world per sq km), it indeed generates queer feelings gazing at the glittering shopping centres (inside more salespersons than shoppers!); and then face the morning papers wherein the modern local architects pronounce abstract theories on the relationship between art, architecture, shopping cult and social space, on which 99 per cent of the people cannot find relevancy. Why so much fuss about one percent of the well-to-do population?

That is the problem with IT (information tech); it is a one-way flow from the industrialised rich countries, from the West, or the North-South blocked corridors of "communication" (ICT). Global culture trickles down you know from where to where (high to low pressure gradient). We are at the receiving end, and grappling with imitations (copying) all the time. The same is the problem with the cultivation of western democracy does not take roots, neither the managers (politicians), or the managed (democracy and parliamentary flow) can cope with the local applications. No time to stand and stare (reflect): where life is leading us, or where we are dragging our micro-life with micro-credit.

We cannot even get pass mark on hybridization techniques. Decades are lost in the transition process where are we since we achieved 'Liberation' or independence in 1971? Where are the architects of the mind? Doesn't matter! Matter and materialism are the ruling demons, well-dressed in the latest fashions. Look at the incongruity of the tv commercials, completely out of tune with the basic values of life. Keep others' factories running, and don't bother about overhauling of your own internal combustion engine operating the personality products and output. Impress others, not yourself!