|Obidul Haque Titu & Kazi Sumaiya Saifee,  PU | 

With a month-long preparation and hard work Department of Architecture, Premier University organized the first public event celebrating its 4th year of journey at the premise of Shilpakala Academy, Chittagong.

The 3 day long event was inaugurated on 27^th February by Honorable Vice Chancellor of Premier University, Dr. Anupam Sen. In his inaugural speech, he encouraged the students with his valuable speech and asked them to preserve the history of nation, especially Chittagong through their works.  The Chairman of the Department  Architect Sohail M. Shakoor expressed the same viewpoint also mentioning how Premier University has played a vital role as a pioneer of Architectural Education which was previously missing in the second most important city of the country. The founder of Premier University and ex-Mayor A B M Mohiuddin Chowdhury was also present in the occasion and appreciated students for their good works.

The event was divided into three segments- exhibition of student’s works, lecture series and cultural program. Student’s works were exhibited all three days; whereas lecture series by renowned Architects and cultural program were held in second and third day respectively.

There were fifty projects of different levels in the exhibition. A fourth year project which focuses on a very critical urban issue of water logging caused by high and low tide of river Karnafully in Agrabad area proposes a thoughtful housing design, “Rethinking living with water” which helps allowing the natural flow of water. This project drew everyone’s attention. Adding to that, there were urban projects addressing different important nodes of city proposing traffic congestion lessening solutions. Not only Architects but also general people were interested to know about the problems and proposed strategic design proposal by students as they were wonderfully presented and explained with informative drawings and models. The visitors were mesmerized by the skyscrapers designed by the students.

The Lecture series was one of its first kind in Chittagong, where renowned architects like Prof. Shamsul Wares (UAP), Prof. Dr. Abu Sayeed M. Ahmed(President of IAB), Prof. Dr. Azizul Mowla(BUET), Nurur Rahman Khan(TKNRK), Md. Fuad Abdul Quaium(Ghorami.jon) presented their insightful lecture on various topics which were very encouraging for the students and local architects.

All of them praised how this Department is growing and increasing expectations with their good work. Prof. Wares mostly focused on the relationship between various form of art and Architecture, and how Architecture is no isolated thing and is a very important art form which affects human life, society and culture. He compared Architecture with writing a poem, where two poems can never be similar but can be equally pleasant to human mind. Prof. Dr. Sayeed emphasized on how we should practice Architecture when it comes to preserving our heritage which represents our history and culture, and he showed some excellent examples in different cities where they are working on different technology for heritage conservation which includes students and professionals of various disciplines. His speech encouraged students, faculties, architects to rethink about valuable heritage and their conservation. Ar. N R Khan also talked about how Architects should think, follow and how to conceptualize a certain work from inspiration, He showed some excellent relationships of inspiration and real work which included not only architecture but different art forms and daily usable things. Prof. Dr. Mowla discussed about curriculum and students involvement on heritage conservation. A different attraction was the presence of Ghorami.Jon, a team of architects and activists who works with vernacular material and ecology. With reference to their projects Ar. Quaium explained how their Architecture helps not breaking but maintaining link between living beings and environment.

The Seminar ended with an interesting discussion panel of guest architects moderated by Ar. Sujaul Islam Khan (AUST), and Ar. Ashiqur Rahman (PU). The panel answered questions from audiences and also discussed how our students can be made aware from school level to respect culture and history. The whole session was very lively and audience from different fraternity equally participated enthusiastically with honorable guests. A token of appreciation was given to each guest by Chairperson Ar. Sohail M Shakoor on behalf of the Department of architecture, Premier University.

The event came to an end with cultural night organized by students where they could be seen performing with spontaneity and energetic mood. A full packed Shilpokola appreciating and encouraging them made the event more successful. Puppet show by a local group synchronized with student’s conversation was a lovely peace of presentation.

The festivity of the event was something worth remembering. As the port city has always been center of attraction for its natural beauty, rich culture and heritage but always lacked in giving proper importance to Architectural education. Premier University has given that platform to many of those dreamers to make their dream a reality.

The event certainly set a benchmark for students and boosted up their energy when they were appreciated by renowned Architects, faculties, students from different institutions and we can always hope that they will keep up the good work and brighten up the name of their University to shape up the city and the nation in future.