Architecture as Freedom: An Exhibition on BRAC Regional Offices in Bangladesh, October 18 - December 20, 2023; District Architecture Center, Washington DC

We are very pleased to announce the exhibition, Architecture as Freedom, featuring the design of five out of eight regional offices across rural Bangladesh constructed for BRAC, the world’s largest non-governmental organization. These projects are architectural prototypes that narrate how the language of architecture can symbolize the agency of poor communities and their pursuit of social justice. Curated by professor and architect Adnan Zillur Morshed, the exhibition will be inaugurated on Wednesday, October 18, 2023, and will run through December 20, 2023. It will take place at the District Architecture Center, located at 421 7^th Street NW, Washington D.C. The venue is easily accessible by the DC Metro, either through the Red Line (Gallery-Place/Chinatown stop) or the Yellow and Green Lines (Archives-Navy Memorial stop).

Architecture as Freedom will feature exhibits that showcase our design process, the social and environmental conditions that influenced it, and the outcome, all framed through the broader context of BRAC’s development initiatives. Built with locally sourced bricks, local construction techniques, and local labor, the new BRAC office buildings are a humble architectural effort to respond to the changing nature of rural Bangladesh and treat the non-governmental organization’s beneficiaries with the human dignity they deserve.

Adnan Morshed joined SAH in 2000. He received an Opler JSAH Publishing Grant in 2004 and an SAH Membership Grant for Emerging Professionals in 2006. He has served on several SAH committees, including the Founders' Award Committee, Hitchcock Book Award Committee, JSAH Editorial Advisory Committee, and the 2023 Annual Conference Session Selection Committee. He was a session chair at the SAH 2020 Annual International Conference.