Bangladesh has built a new wave of cultural architecture over the last decade. Tied to design influences from across the Bengal region and the broader Indian subcontinent, the country's modern buildings stand alongside monuments dating back thousands of years. With an architecture rooted in religion, history and culture, contemporary projects build upon the past to imagine a new future for Bangladesh and its cities.
The private dwelling is a particularly favorable place in which to enjoy double-height spaces. This design strategy not only allows vertical spaces to be connected, but also enriches the functional and aesthetic possibilities of a building; often used in living rooms and kitchens, these spaces are designed to generate encounters between occupants. In this Photos of the Week selection, we present images by renowned photographers such as Kim Zwarts, Rena Lorenz, and Shigeo Ogawa.
It can't be denied that architects love brick. The material is popular both for its warmth and for the diversity of expressions that can be achieved by applying it in a creative way—depending on the arrangement of individual bricks or the combination of bonds, it’s possible to arrive at a result that is both original and attractive. That ingenuity is what photographers like Hiroyuki Oki, Gustavo Sosa Pinilla, and François Brix, among others, have attempted to capture in their photographs. In these images, light is a key element of good composition, allowing the photographers to control the intensity of color and the contrast of masses and voids, as well as enhancing the incredible textures of the brick we love so much.