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The word ‘Occupation’ and ‘Conquest’ can be considered as the opposite sides of the same coin, based on the narrator, such words impacts significantly in shaping the architecture, urban morphology and landscape - with which the collective memory and identity are largely entangled.
Since 1518, there were annual voyages of Portuguese ships in the south-eastern coast of Bengal (present Bangladesh) (Subrahmanyam, 1987: 272), which remarks the beginning of the Portuguese occupation culminated by the preaching of Catholic faith by the trained missionaries from Goa, India as early as 1548 (Campos, 1919: 101). Thus a new typology as ‘Church Architecture’ was inaugurated in the urban landscape, the finest example of which is the Holy Rosary Cathedral at Chottogram - in the largest historic Port city of present Bangladesh.
Before such incident took place in the land, dominant with ‘Mosque Architecture’ i.e. Bengal, the ‘Mosque Architecture’ was introduced in the urban fabric of Portugal through the inauguration of Andalusian occupation from 711 (Mattoso, 1992: 418), finest example of which is the converted Mosque of Mértola, with the present name of ‘Igreja Matriz’ in the south eastern part of Portugal.
This research aims at investigating the impacts of such foreign typologies in shaping the urban morphology, heritage and landscape over time influencing the collective memory and identity in broader spectrum. To overcome polarised views, comparative cases from both the East and the West are taken into consideration, reflecting their significance in the contemporary urban life, that concerns social inclusion, equity and resilience (SDG, 2030).
Nota biográfica | Short Bio
Tamanna Ahmed is an Architect (M.Arch, UÉvora) and a Researcher at CES/University of Coimbra, currently conducting her doctoral studies, supported by FCT. In recent years, she has conducted field work supported by Orient foundation, on ‘Portuguese heritages and settlements in Bengal’ which was ground- breaking to initiate the Doctoral Thesis.
She was one of the Production Architect for the exhibition of ‘Marina Tabassum: Materials, Movements and Architecture in Bangladesh’ (17 April - 24 September, 2024) held at the MAC/CCB, Lisbon - supported by Aga Khan Trust for Culture, among others. She also collaborated at the project of ‘Uma Casa na Cabeça’ - a three month long workshop flanked from this Exhibition where the aim was to bring the communities together, emphasizing social integration among locals with the immigrants of different age, gender and ethnicity.
Till date, she has conducted several collaborations and communications in Austria, Portugal and Bangladesh.
| Palavras-chave | Keywords | History of Bengal and Portugal, Urban Landscape, Urban Heritage, Collective memory and Identity. |
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