Adnan Morshed, Ph.D.
Position: Member
Email: prince95me@gmail.com
Bio:
Adnan Morshed received his Ph.D. and Master’s in architecture from MIT, and B. Arch. from the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, where he also taught. He completed his post-doctoral at the National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. He is currently Associate Professor at the School of Architecture and Planning, the Catholic University of America, Washington, DC. He has served on the Board of Directors of the Society of Architectural Historians, jury for the National Endowment for the Humanities grants, and, recently, chaired the Society of Architectural Historians’ committee for 2015 Alice Davis Hitchcock Book Award. Adnan Morshed has been awarded highly competitive fellowships, among others, the Wyeth Fellowship at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (CASVA), the National Gallery of Art; the Smithsonian Institution; Wolfsonian-Florida International University; and the Society of Architectural Historians. His research has garnered prestigious research grants from the Graham Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities, and MIT. He is the author of Impossible Heights: Skyscrapers, Flight, and the Master Builder (University Minnesota Press, 2015) and Oculus: A Decade of Insights into Bangladeshi Affairs (University Press Limited, 2012). He has lectured around the world on the history and theory of modern architecture and urbanism, urban ecology and gender justice, and sustainable urban planning in developing countries. His articles appeared in the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Journal of Architectural Education, Journal of South Asian Studies, Thresholds (MIT), Center (National Gallery of Art), Constructs (Yale), New Geographies (Harvard), Architectural Design, and Traditional Dwellings and Settlements Review. He has served as a reviewer for various national and international refereed journals. In 2012, he led the Society of Architectural Historians’ study tour to three South Asian cities: Dhaka, Delhi, and Chandigarh. Currently he also serves on the Board of the $1M Mellon Foundation Grant to MIT’s Global Architecture History Teaching Collaborative, led by Professor Mark Jarzombek. A practicing architect and urbanist, Adnan Morshed has designed buildings in the U.S., Lebanon, Malaysia, and Bangladesh. He is an avid traveler, photographer, collector, and an op-ed contributor to various newspapers and online forums.
Publication Links:
The tragicomic destiny of Dhaka
Occupy Narayanganj: Can the mayor-elect be the harbinger of good urban governance?
Deaths unforeseen: The killing fields of Bangladeshi roads
Ahmad and the unskilled labour market
Arial Beel’s Versailles moment
A sociology of Dhaka’s traffic congestion
Goodbye master planning – Hello bottom-up urbanism
How compact cities can save Bangladesh
Saving the Sundarbans, rethinking economic growth