Posted Monday, May 15, 2006; 20:00 HKT
It is a wonderful irony that one of Asia's most rambunctious democracies should be housed in its most ethereally elegant parliament building. But such is the case in Bangladesh, where the Jatiyo Sangsad Bhaban, or National Assembly—flooded by natural light and ringed by the still waters of an artificial lake—is the official arena for politics of breathtaking malignancy. Situated on a 200-acre site in the center of Dhaka, this giant gray octagon of a building at first looks like it was hallucinated by Isaac Asimov, or that it came to George Lucas in a dream. In reality, it is the deeply thoughtful work of American architect Louis Kahn.

The interior comprises eight stories of open walkways and cutaway walls, punctured with vast circles, triangles and squares that overlook an enclosed promenade. Every new corner delivers a surprise: a narrow window framing a sliver of Dhaka, perhaps, or the building's guts as seen through a "telescope" of aligned circles. The debating chamber is an imposing domed amphitheater, dominated by a vast calligraphic representation of the first words of the Koran: "By the Name of Allah." Besides this, there are countless offices, a mosque and a library. All external walls come into contact with water, which helps cool the building's interior, if not the ardor of its occupants. The distant hum of a basement power plant completes the otherworldly effect.

Kahn sketched out his original plans in 1959, but did not live to see the building's opening in 1982. Sadly, his creation has also seen nothing like the amount of use that the architect would have hoped for. The military regime that ruled Bangladesh for much of the 1980s had no need for a debating chamber. Since then, this endlessly fractious democracy has been marred by assassinations, national strikes, and parliamentary boycotts by whichever party happens to be out of power. Still, the Jatiyo Sangsad Bhaban stands amid the mayhem as a monumental reminder of what can be achieved where you least expect it.

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