Refugee camps, regardless of location, are supposed to be “temporary,” a euphemism for biopolitical holding pens that have no end in sight. Host countries thus do not allow permanent structures, and shelters must be made of perishable materials. Such constraints cause particular problems for a camp of the scale of Kutupalong, Bangladesh, which hosts around 900,000 Rohingya. The government of Bangladesh, the UN, and over 100 NGOs who are responsible for this massive population have different agendas and modus operandi. Architects in charge of shelters and public structures must negotiate the tensions between these different groups and between host communities and migrants. This talk will focus on architect Rizvi Hassan. Working closely with refugees, he emphasizes their resilience and creativity rather than victimhood.
The fruit of participatory collaboration, the final designs incorporate their artistic skills and help alleviate trauma by giving visible form to the memories of their lost homes and villages.

Esther da Costa Meyer, Professor emerita in the Department of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University, was the Vincent Scully Visiting Professor of Architectural History, Yale School of Architecture (2019) and the Kirk Varnedoe Visiting Professor at NYU’s Institute of Fine Arts (2024). Her research has focused on the architectural practices of old colonial powers and the resilient cultures of resistance in colonized nations. Her book Dividing Paris: Urban Renewal and Social Inequality, 1852-1870 (Princeton University Press, 2022), won the French Heritage Society Book Award in 2024. In recent years, her teaching has centered on architecture’s complicity with climate change, as well as the architecture of refugee camps around the world.