JSB as Democratic Emblem and Urban Focal Point: The Imagined Socio-Political Construction of Space

Abstract

Jatio Sangsad Bhaban [JSB], more commonly known as the National Assembly Building, or Capital Complex of Bangladesh, was designed by the renowned architect Louis I. Kahn and is an iconic landmark in the urban landscape of Dhaka (Capital of Bangladesh). It was commissioned in 1962, and a site was selected on the northern outskirt of the then Dacca (Dhaka). From the inception of the city, the rapid growth occurred mostly in a spontaneous way, which later occurred surrounding the JSB. JSB has become a central physical focus in Dhaka because of organic growth of Dhaka. JSB, the national assembly building of Bangladesh, can be viewed as a product of Bangladeshi nationalism, a socio-political construct that expresses both the national identity and the democratic spirit of the Bengali people after the country’s tumultuous history of subjugation, occupation. This paper proposes that there exists an imagined, symbolic and metaphorical connection between the spatial construction of JSB as an urban focal point, and its socio-political construction. This imagined nexus is explored in this paper in line with the theoretical framework of Lefebvre’s (1991) groundbreaking treatise on the ‘production of space’. The imagined and real socio-political construction of space is also endorsed by a range of discourses from urban anthropology, urban geography, human and cultural geography.