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  Houses of Hope: Architecture for a Better Muslim World

Houses of Hope Architecture for a Better Muslim World

By Erich Follath in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Part 2: An Adventurous Bavarian in Bangladesh

Perhaps the most surprising selection was the school in Bangladesh: an exemplary success story in a region plagued by natural disasters, a project that is the result of a series of favorable circumstances -- and bold decisions.

In 1997, Anna Heringer, an adventurous 19-year-old from Bavaria, wasn't quite sure what she planned to do with her life when she traveled to South Asia for a nine-month stint as a volunteer aid worker. Heringer ended up in Rudrapur, a village of 3,000 inhabitants 150 kilometers (93 miles) north of the capital Dhaka. Hours from the nearest major city, the village was only accessible by Jeep along mud paths. Not unexpectedly, to Heringer the locals -- split evenly between Hindus and Muslim -- seemed conservative and suspicious of foreign influences at first.

Heringer went on to study architecture in Linz after completing her stint in Bangladesh. But she stayed in contact with Dipshikha, the Bangladeshi aid organization with which she had worked in Rudrapur. She was drawn to the place and kept returning to visit. When the villagers eventually learned to trust Heringer, they told her that they wanted, above all, to build a new school. The old building, dingy and cramped, had a corrugated metal roof that leaked during the monsoon season.

The villagers wanted a new brick building. They had an aversion to their traditional mud huts, which are dark and susceptible to mold. But gradually, the architecture student managed to convince both her friends at non-governmental organizations and the local farmers of the advantages of a mud-and-bamboo design. In the end, the entire village helped build the "handmade school" in a four-month communal construction process.

The structure consists almost entirely of materials found in the village surroundings, and it utilizes the centuries-old skills of local builders. But Heringer, together with her colleague Eike Roswag, modified the traditional concepts in a few key respects. The two are by no means blind purists. Wet mud is mixed with straw and then applied in several stages. The roof is made of three layers of bamboo rods and reinforced with mud. The framing of the building is a sensible compromise between natural materials and smaller, modern "joints." The bamboo is held in place with steel anchors, and both traditional jute and nylon bind the structure together.

Because the students are accustomed to sitting on the floor, the building requires almost no furniture. Colorful textiles hang in the doorways, giving the structure an especially cheerful character and filtering the light that enters the classrooms. The children loved their new school from the day it opened.

Heringer's next project is an expansion of her concept. She plans to use her new, improved construction principle using natural materials to design a few model houses for the local farmers, a step that will bring decisive improvement to overall living conditions in the village. The young architect, who turned her Bangladesh project into her university degree project, beams as she accepts her prize from the hands of the Aga Khan and the Malaysian prime minister, immediately following the "grand master," Lord Foster on stage. She and her partners can make good use of the $55,000 prize. "That will build three houses in Rudrapur."

Returning to Work

Eight of the nine works honored this year awards are located in Asia and Africa. A single European project, the restoration of the old section of Nicosia, Cyprus, is on the roster. The project is an especially sensitive undertaking, because it brings together Cyprus's two opposing groups, the Greeks and the Turks, in a neighborhood in the middle of the divided city. As if to avert potential disputes, a United Nations representative stands between the Orthodox Christians and Muslims from Nicosia who are receiving the prize.

"Do not accept everything in your environment. Ask critical questions. Criticism should not, as has unfortunately become commonplace in many Islamic nations today, be misunderstood as disloyalty. It is critical for our society’s survival," the Aga Khan tells a group of invited Malaysian architecture students at a special seminar the next day.

It's then time for the prizewinners to return home to their respective worlds, to Burkina Faso, to Lebanon and to Bangladesh. Aga Khan hurries off to a birthday celebration in his chateau near Paris. Meanwhile, hundreds of noisy, cheerful schoolchildren wait for Heringer in Bangladesh, women from the local market and opposition politicians count on Mayor Zagré’s return to continue the budget negotiations for their project, and large quantities of mud await Mswanaq back home in Yemen.

Soon they will all be back in their huts, their ancient high-rises and their castles, ready to face old problems with new hope.

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan

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