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the tower was making it possible to establish a
duality within a same block. Then the double spiral,
the structure of DNA was an interesting figure to
illustrate this dynamic — competitive and evolutive,
symbolic of technology that drives the images of
both countries.
KM: What constraints of the programme or site
influenced or affected the design?
SP: The programme was very interesting as it
was a combination of common ground for recep-
tion — the visa section giving the same Schengen
visa, security services, technical support and
parking, and then identified chanceries, French
and German ambassadors, and separate IT
services. In some way, you had a common base,
the duality could be expressed in the tower.
The 8000 sq. m. plot is a square. One of the
constrains was a large setback from all the sides
to mitigate the effect of a bomb blast on the road,
leaving a low-rise ground level that could touch
the street for the visa section and the technical
areas, and a tower with the diplomats. That became
de-facto a medieval castle with the boundary wall
playing the rampart.
KM: Did the location and site have an impact on
the design, and/or its execution and construction?
What was the nature of that impact?
SP: The diplomatic area of Baridhara in Dhaka
is an interesting leafy green locale of low-rise
embassies with large gardens, in the best tradition
of the Dhaka of the 1950s and 1960s that was a
garden city. In this area is a collection of
interesting buildings such as the British High
Commission, the US Embassy, the Korean, Thai,
and Indian Embassies. Most are made of exposed
brick, the best of its kind in South Asia. We love
brick, and have done significant building in brick
such as the Triburg and Tahiliani Buildings in
Gurgaon, and felt that it was a great opportunity
to blend in the texture of the city while being
different at the same time. We had the chance to
get the same brick manufacturer as the parliament
done by Louis Kahn — silky rich red bricks from
the delta region.
KM: Is there a key design or structural idea that
is an important achievement in this project?
SP: The key design was to establish a floating
double-spiral in two different bricks — one in red
clay brick that symbolises Northern Europe or
Germany, and the other a grey concrete brick that
reflects France or the stone quality of southern
Europe as well as the modern inventor of reinforced
concrete in the late 19th-early 20th century. One
can remember August Perret as the master ofmodern, architectural concrete with the No-
tre-Dame du Raincy or the Conseil Economique
et Social. Then came the pivot of the building that
is a reference to the Islamic architecture of Bang-
ladesh, an empty triangulated tower of
octagonal shape taking the panoramic lift to the
very top of the building.
KM: What does it mean for you to practice
architecture and to build in this subcontinent?
SP: After [spending] 20 years in India, mostly
designing Indian institutions, this project was
an opportunity to reflect on my European roots
and also a link with Bangladesh that I visited
shortly in 1997, with a glimpse of the Parliament
that was difficult to visit then. It was a culturally
and technically a challenging exercise. We had
two governments with sometimes different views
and technical cultures, a local context not that
different from India.
Embassies are complex projects, continuously
enhancing their security. We had riots at the
beginning of the construction, buses burning
outside with Molotov cocktail, then the attacks
at the Holey Artisan Bakery in July 2016, leaving
more than 20 dead, mostly foreigners. Every new
attack involved reflecting on incorporating
protection measures in the project.