Journey through self: design of contemplative spaces inspired from the philosophy and lyrics of Fakir Lalon Shah of Kushtia, Bangladesh

Abstract

The core of the philosophy of Fakir Lalon Shah, a mystic poet and spiritual practitioner of Kushtia, Bangladesh talks of self-containment and to look for answers within self; to connect Soneself to the cosmic energy and understand, over everything, self. This thesis is an attempt to explore those personal spaces that unite to be a whole. Like in Fakir Lalon Shah's lyrics-'the individual enlightened ones are not the fully ripen entities, but all the enlightened ones that light up the regal lamp altogether," the oneness of humankind free of class-differences achieved through personaljourneys is the force that inspired this project to become physical. Physical representation of a philosophy, a lifestyle, an education requires putting up an eye-glass for atypical of genre in architecture while at the same time a lot of real issues needed to be accommodated within the short range of intervention. The journey is much spiritual and exploratory in nature. Any kind of designed space will be interpreted differently, individually. For that reason an analysis of the mediums of art which carry the message of the philosophy had been tried to incorporate to start with something tangible; may it be verbal (the songs and lyrics) or visual (architecture). At the end, a set of contemplative spaces have been derived from the essence of the lyrics to extract the philosophy which was intended to serve as an education towards a lifestyle restructuring the urban tissue around Fakir Lalon Shah's shrine in Cheuria, Kushtia.