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Houses of speaker, his deputy almost ready

Sultana Rahman
The construction of the Speaker's and Deputy Speaker's houses at Shere-E-Bangla Nagar is now completed ignoring requests from the global body of architects and local protests
"The contractors are now busy putting finishing touches to the civil and electrical work," said a senior official of the Public Works Department (PWD), preferring anonymity.
President of UIA (Union Internationales des Architectes) Jaime Lerner's in a letter in August 2003 appealed to Prime Minister Khaleda Zia to extend her support in protecting the Parliament Complex, which the Paris based organisation said, has become a landmark of modern architecture and a symbol of Bangladesh.
The construction of these two houses, which began on a 1.37 acre of land in July 2002, was approved by the speaker's office in September 1996 ignoring Louis I Kahn's final master plan of 1973.
Kahn who started his project of developing
Shere-E-Bangla Nagar (the then Ayub Nagar) in 1962 submitted the final plan after Independencein 1973.
The construction of the houses drew flak from the civil society, environmentalists, architects, media and others as the PWD started the construction of the houses on the basis of Kahn's incomplete plan of 1968.
A High Court (HC) Division Bench on May 23,2003 stopped the construction of these two houses at the Parliament Complex following a case filed by Bangladesh Paribesh Andolon (Bapa) and the Institute of Architects, Bangladesh (IAB).
On August 18 last year, the Appellate Division stayed the High Court ruling. Meantime, the construction work continued for three months - enough time to complete the residential structure on a complex regarded worldwide as an architectural marvel designed by one of the greatest architects of the 20th century.
"It is really frustrating that the public demand has been ignored," Bapa's General Secretary Abu Naser Khan said, adding 'the government taking advantage of the court
ruling concentrated on the completion of the construction of the houses."
"We will fight the case till the end, no matter how much time it takes to settle it. We are sure that Louis Kahn's original plan has been distorted and will prove that in the court one day," Khan said.
Bapa's General Secretary also said that they will put forward their demand to the government to declare the Parliament Complex a World Heritage Site to save it from any further distortion.
Some of the members of the IAB expressed their 'grief at the completion of the construction of the houses and said justice was denied to the people of this country.
"Internationally, this masterly work has been celebrated as one of the most triumphant events of architecture in the last century," said architect Kashef Mahmoob Chowdhury. "But the painful irony, the government who is responsible to protect the world heritage, has itself become the major cause for the violation and desecration of the valuable possession," he added.