For the Award winning project SA Family Graveyard, Architect Rafiq Azam and his studio SHATOTTO drew upon the philosophy of ‘Lalon’ to create a metaphoric architecture that contains death and appreciates the earthly life. The project won the Gold medal in ARCASIA Awards for Architecture 2017. The award is considered as the highest honor for a practicing architect in Asia. The Graveyard is situated in Noakhali, Bangladesh and designed and constructed for Mr. Salauddin Ahmed's family- Editor
| From the Architect |
Lalon, a 19th century philosopher mystic minstrel says “If there is something not inside the body, then it is not outside of the body either.” He says, Body and mind or thoughts are two different things intermingles and intertwines creates human being. Dialogue between body and good thoughts creates good human being. The thoughts are like birds, comes inside the body and goes out of it. They are interdependent yet independent and they belong each other and belong to themselves. So, the meaning of death is going out of the thoughts from the body and never comes back.
During the Graveyard project design as architect says, “I drew a line between life and death considering life as terrestrial or temporal one side and the other death as celestial. When I elevated the line ,It became a window which is actually dividing and connecting the life as terrestrial and death as celestial. Architecturally the window made of simple as cast concrete strongly positioned in the natural rural setup looking at the dense betel nut trees and green village around. The raised platform here, is the threshold space, a silent space of thoughts as the 12th century philosopher Jalaludding Rumi says, “Silence is the language of God. Rest all are the poor translations.”