Architects Marina Tabassum and Lesley Lokko, the world’s "100 Most Influential People of 2024"
21/04/2024.
TIME Magazine
metalocus, ADELA BONAS
metalocus, ADELA BONAS
TIME Magazine has named architects Marina Tabassum and Lesley Lokko, to its list of the world’s "100 Most Influential People of 2024."
The recent awardees RIBA Gold Medalist (Lokko) and Soane Medal winner (Tabassum), are included alongside world leaders, artists (Dua Lipa on the cover) and sports stars (as Spanish Jenni Hermoso) in the annually published list of US magazine, as the world's most influential.
The recent awardees RIBA Gold Medalist (Lokko) and Soane Medal winner (Tabassum), are included alongside world leaders, artists (Dua Lipa on the cover) and sports stars (as Spanish Jenni Hermoso) in the annually published list of US magazine, as the world's most influential.
Marina Tabassum. Photograph by Sounak Das.
Marina Tabassum.
Lesley Lokko. Photograph courtesy of RIBA.
Tabassum is included in the innovator's section of the list with a small description by Harvard GSD’s Dean Sarah M. Whiting, and Lokko is listed in the pioneer's section, in another brief profile by filmmaker, screenwriter, and producer Ava Marie DuVernay.
Altruism isn't typically an adjective attributed to award-winning architects, but Marina Tabassum isn't typical, said Sarah M. Whiting. She has developed a practice and a way of being that prioritizes local cultures and values...
Describing her Bait Ur Rouf Mosque in Dhaka, Bangladesh, which won the prestigious Aga Khan Award, she said a building "has to be able to breathe without artificial aids." ...While she practices locally, she teaches, lectures, and is recognized internationally...
Lesley Lokko. Photograph by Debra Hurford-Brown, courtesy of RIBA.
Named by American filmmaker Ava DuVernay as one of those "forces of nature who does many things well", Lokko called attention to DuVernay because she was also writing novels, and paid special attention to her work as the curator of the Venice Architecture Biennale. The first person of African descent appointed to the esteemed position, ..., giving voice to a new generation of artists.
Both join a list of other architects selected as TIME 100 honorees that includes SCAPE founder Kate Orff (2023), Kengo Kuma (2021), Jeanne Gang (2019), Elizabeth Diller (2018), David Adjaye (2017), and Wang Shu (2013).
Altruism isn't typically an adjective attributed to award-winning architects, but Marina Tabassum isn't typical, said Sarah M. Whiting. She has developed a practice and a way of being that prioritizes local cultures and values...
Describing her Bait Ur Rouf Mosque in Dhaka, Bangladesh, which won the prestigious Aga Khan Award, she said a building "has to be able to breathe without artificial aids." ...While she practices locally, she teaches, lectures, and is recognized internationally...
Lesley Lokko. Photograph by Debra Hurford-Brown, courtesy of RIBA.
Named by American filmmaker Ava DuVernay as one of those "forces of nature who does many things well", Lokko called attention to DuVernay because she was also writing novels, and paid special attention to her work as the curator of the Venice Architecture Biennale. The first person of African descent appointed to the esteemed position, ..., giving voice to a new generation of artists.
Both join a list of other architects selected as TIME 100 honorees that includes SCAPE founder Kate Orff (2023), Kengo Kuma (2021), Jeanne Gang (2019), Elizabeth Diller (2018), David Adjaye (2017), and Wang Shu (2013).
More information
Marina Tabassum
Marina Tabassum, was born, lives and works in Dhaka, Bangladesh. She is Founder and Principal Architect of Marina Tabassum Architects MTA in Dhaka and is a pioneer of what she describes as ‘the architecture of relevance’.
Her practice focuses on designing buildings in tune with their natural environments (in particular, working with local materials and communities) while also embracing the design challenges of sustainability, environment, and our collective impact on the planet. She is currently working in the Rohingya refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar, in south-east Bangladesh, and designing mobile modular houses for ultra-low-income people in the country’s coastal areas.
Her notable buildings include the minimal, sun-dappled Bait Ur Rouf Mosque, opened in 2012, the Independence Monument of Bangladesh and the Museum of Independence. She was winner of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 2016. In 2018, she took part in Freespace, the main exhibition of the Venice Biennale for Architecture, where she explored the Bengali courtyard.
She is Visiting Professor at the BRAC University in Dhaka. She runs undergraduate studios at the University of Asia Pacific, and has given lectures and presentations at a number of other educational institutions and conferences having been the Director of Academic Program at Bengal Institute for Architecture, Landscapes and Settlements since 2015.
Her practice focuses on designing buildings in tune with their natural environments (in particular, working with local materials and communities) while also embracing the design challenges of sustainability, environment, and our collective impact on the planet. She is currently working in the Rohingya refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar, in south-east Bangladesh, and designing mobile modular houses for ultra-low-income people in the country’s coastal areas.
Her notable buildings include the minimal, sun-dappled Bait Ur Rouf Mosque, opened in 2012, the Independence Monument of Bangladesh and the Museum of Independence. She was winner of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 2016. In 2018, she took part in Freespace, the main exhibition of the Venice Biennale for Architecture, where she explored the Bengali courtyard.
She is Visiting Professor at the BRAC University in Dhaka. She runs undergraduate studios at the University of Asia Pacific, and has given lectures and presentations at a number of other educational institutions and conferences having been the Director of Academic Program at Bengal Institute for Architecture, Landscapes and Settlements since 2015.
Lesley Lokko
Lesley Lokko. Born in Dundee, United Kingdom, in 1964, is a Ghanaian-Scottish architect, academic, and novelist. Trained at the Bartlett School of Architecture and with a PhD in Architecture from the University of London where Lokko’s knowledge base and capability as an educator was built, her academic career was initially honed at Kingston University, University of East London, London Metropolitan University, University of Greenwich, the Bartlett School of Architecture (UCL) and later at the University of Westminster. These experiences were followed by a number of visiting professorships in North-American and African higher education institutions.
Throughout her career thus far, Lokko has established a durable and international legacy in terms of her voice and the courses to which she has contributed, most notably between 2014 and 2019, as the founder and director of the Graduate School of Architecture of the University of Johannesburg, a school which – in its independence and ambition – has been transforming not just the content but the narrative of architectural education in South Africa and the continental region.
She has pioneered for, and cultivated, critical debate about identity in architecture. The innovation and passion in her teaching is matched by an unfaltering commitment to ensuring that architectural education and research run in parallel with the contemporary anthropological, artistic, technological and literary public debates. In tandem with this approach, she questions, defines and enhances the role the architect plays in shaping contemporary global and local communities. This professional stance not only makes her a most deserving winner of this award but also confirms that we are to expect many forms of achievement and of well-deserved recognition in her future career steps.
Throughout her career thus far, Lokko has established a durable and international legacy in terms of her voice and the courses to which she has contributed, most notably between 2014 and 2019, as the founder and director of the Graduate School of Architecture of the University of Johannesburg, a school which – in its independence and ambition – has been transforming not just the content but the narrative of architectural education in South Africa and the continental region.
She has pioneered for, and cultivated, critical debate about identity in architecture. The innovation and passion in her teaching is matched by an unfaltering commitment to ensuring that architectural education and research run in parallel with the contemporary anthropological, artistic, technological and literary public debates. In tandem with this approach, she questions, defines and enhances the role the architect plays in shaping contemporary global and local communities. This professional stance not only makes her a most deserving winner of this award but also confirms that we are to expect many forms of achievement and of well-deserved recognition in her future career steps.
