National Parliament

It is one of the most majestic public buildings in Bangladesh. The National Parliament (Sangsad Bhaban) complex is located at Sher-e-Bangla Nagar of Dhaka city.

The decision to construct the National Parliament Complex at Dhaka was originally taken in 1959. Louis I Kahn. one of the greatest architects of the time was initially selected for designing the complex. Hostels for members of parliament, ministers and secretaries. Hospitality halls and communally buildings. All linked by roads and walkways and surrounded by attractive gardens and lakes. The main characteristic of the building is its monumentally. The mass of concrete lined with marble strips, the outer wall punctuate by pure geometrical openings and the dominating circular and rectangular concrete masses impart a supreme monumentality to the building quite suited to its noble function.

The main building complex consists of nine individual blocks, of which eight at its periphery rise to a height of 35 meters, while the octagonal block at the centre shoots up to 52 meters. The central block accommodates the Parliament chamber with a capacity of 354 seats for members of the parliament. The entire complex has a floor area or 76,487 SQ meters in the main building, 20725 sq meters in the South Plaza and 6,041 sq meters in the North Plaza. This architecture is one of the important considerations in designing the building was protection from the sun and rain.

Sixty Dome Mosque

Among the many surviving monuments of the Khan Jahan Ali style, undoubtedly the most magnificent and largest brick mosque in Bangladesh is the Shait Gombuj. It is situated in Bagerhat district. For outstanding architectural value. The World Heritage Committee of UNESCO inscribed Bagerhat in the World Heritage list and it got the status of the second World Heritage site in Bangladesh after Paharpur. As there were a great number of mosques, the Historian, French monthly termed it a city of mosques. Khan Jahan Ali came from Delhi to settle a Muslim colony in this swampland in the early-15th century AD. History says that he constructed about 360 mosques and as many freshwater tanks, as well as palaces, mausoleums and other public buildings in a very short space of time.

Out of today's surviving mosques, the Shait Gombuj Mosque is the most magnificent and certainly the largest brick mosque surviving in Bangladesh. Its name, meaning '60 domes', is misleading as in reality, it is roofed over with 77 small domes supported by a forest of slender columns covering a large prayer hall and giving it the appearance of a medieval church crypt.  There is little adornment to this building other than the carved stone decoration to the central mihrab at the western end of the prayer hall. The exterior facades, with slightly 'battered' walls, have discernible curving cornices a concession to the local style.

Lalbag Fort

Lalbagh Fort, an incomplete Mughal palace fortress in Dhaka stood on the banks of the river Buriganga in the southwestern part of the old city. The construction of the fort was commenced in 1678 AD by Prince Muhammad Azam during his 5 month long vice-royalty of Bengal.

For a long time the fort was considered to be a combination of three buildings (the mosque, the tomb of Bibi Pari and the Diwan-i-Aam), two gateways and a portion of the partly damaged fortification wall. In the present fort area of 7.2 hectares, excavations have revealed the remains of structures. Of the three surviving gateways, the southern one is the most imposing. Seen from the front it is a three-storied structure with a fronton, bordered with slender minarets.

A water channel with fountains at regular intervals connects the three buildings from east to west and two similar channels run from south to north. The building in the middle, the tomb of Bibi Pari, is the most impressive of the surviving buildings of the fort. Eight rooms surround a central square room, containing the mortal remains of Bibi Pari, which is covered by a false dome. The entire inner wall of the central room was covered with white marble. While the four side central rooms had stone skirting up to a height of one meter. The wall in the four corner rooms was skirted with beautiful glazed floral tiles. The southeastern corner room contains a small grave, popularly known to be of Shamsad Begum, possibly a relative of Bibi Pari. The Lalbagh Fort Mosque is a three-domed mosque with a water tank.

Curzon Hall

Curzon Hall meant to be a town hall, was named after Lord Curzon, the Viceroy of India, who laid its foundation in 1904. A year later Bengal was partitioned and Dhaka became the capital of the newly created province of East Bengal and Assam. Following the annulment of partition in 1911 it was used as a premise of Dhaka College, and after the establishment of Dhaka University in 1921, became part of the university's science section and continues as such. Laid out in a spacious and carefully maintained garden, this double storeyed brick building has a large central hall, lateral wings on the east and west with several rooms, and a continuous verandah on all sides.

It marks the casting aside of veiled power after the sepoy revolt of 1857, and India's passing directly under the British Crown, seeking legitimacy by linkage to the Mughals. The red colour substituting for red sandstone, and the ornate brackets, deep eaves, and domed terrace pavilions (chhatris), specially of the middle section are strikingly reminiscent of the small but well-known Diwan-i-Khas in the palace fortress of Fatehpur Sikri, Emperor akbar's capital between 1570 and 1585. Not only were both cities new capitals, but the deliberate choice of the Fatehpur Sikri style may be explained by the fact that the British favoured Akbar as the wisest and most tolerant of all the Mughals.

The Curzon Hall has attained a great significance in the history of the language movement. It was here, in 1948, the students of Dhaka University uttered their first refusal to accept Mohammed Ali Jinnah's declaration that Urdu alone would be the state language of the then Pakistan.

Mainamati

It is called the Seat of Lost Dynasties. About 8 km to the west of Comilla town, situated 114 km southeast of Dhaka, lies a range of low hills known as the Mainamati-Lalmai ridge, which was an extensive centre of Buddhist culture. On the slopes or these hills lie scattered a treasure of information about the early Buddhist civilization (7th-12th Century AD.). At Salban in the middle or the ridge, excavations have laid bare a large Buddhist Vihara (monastery) with an imposing central shrine. It has revealed valuable information about the rule of the Chandra and Deva dynasties which Flourished here from the 7th to the 12th century AD. The whole range of hillocks runs for about 18 km and is studded with more than 50 sites. A site museum houses the archaeological finds which include terra cotta plaques, bronze statues and caskets, coins, jewellery, utensils, pottery and votive stupas embossed with Buddhist inscriptions.

Ahsanullah Manjil

It is situated at Kumartoli in old Dhaka on the bank of the river Buriganga. It was the residential palace and the kachari of the nawabs of Dhaka. It has recently been turned into a museum. The construction of the palace was begun in 1859 and completed in 1872. Nawab Abdul Ghani named it Ahsan Manzil after his son Khwaja Ahsanullah. It established on a raised platform of 1 meter, the two-storied palace measures 125.4m by 28.75m. The height of the ground floor is 5 meters and that of the first floor 5.8 meters. There are porticos of the height of the ground floor, both on the northern and southern sides of the palace. A spacious open stairway has come down from the southern portico.

Internally, the palace is divided into two symmetrical halves on either side of the dome. There is a large drawing room in the east wing of the first floor. On its northern side there is a library and a card room, and in the eastern corner there are four square rooms. On the western wing of the first floor there is a spacious jalsaghar with a Hindustani room on the northern side and four square rooms in the western corner. On the ground floor there is a big dining hall and six square rooms in the eastern part. There are attractive wooden stairs in the room that is attached to the north of the domed room. The wooden ceiling of the room, decorated with geometric designs, is very elegant.

Mahasthangarh

It is considered the oldest archaeological site of the county. It is located at a distance of 18 km north or Bogra town on the western bank of the Karatoa River. The spectacular site is an imposing landmark in the area. Having a long fortified Enclosure. Beyond the fortified area, other ancient ruins fan out within a semicircle of about 8 km radius. Several isolated mounds, the local names of which are Govinda Bhita Temple, Khodia Pathar Mound, Mankalir Kunda, Parsuramer Bedi, Jiyat Kunda etc. surround the fortified city. This 3rd century B.C. archaeological site is still held to be of great sanctity by the Hindus. Every year (mid-April) and once every 12 years (in December) thousands of Hindu devotees join the bathing ceremony on the bank of the Karatoa River.

A visit to the Mahasthangarh site museum will acquaint tourists with wide variety or antiquities, ranging form terracotta objects to gold ornaments and coins recovered from the site. Also noteworthy are the shrine or Shah Sultan Bulki Mahisawaiy and Gokul Medh in the neighbourhood of Mahasthangarh.

Sonargaon

Sonargaon's importance in the pre-Muslim period is borne out by its ancient name of Suvarnagrama (the golden village), from which it is obvious how the Muslim version of the name is derived, as well as by the existence of Langalbandh and Panchamighat, the two traditional holy bathing places of the Hindus, in this tract of land on the west bank of the old Brahmaputra. Sonargaon rose to be the seat of an independent ruler under Ghiyasuddin Bahadur Shah, and after his fall it was the headquarters of the eastern province of Bengal under the Tughlaqs till 1338. Sonargaon emerged as the capital of an independent Sultanate under Fakhruddin Mubarak Shah (1338-1349). In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century Panam Nagar was developed in a part of medieval Sonargaon.

By the second Quarter of the fourteenth century AD Sonargaon had developed into a commercial metropolis; seafaring boats could easily reach Sonargaon from west Asian and southeast Asian countries. Ibn Batuta describes Sonargaon as an important port city, which had direct commercial relations with countries like China, Indonesia (Java) and the Maldives. Muslin produced in Sonargaon, especially its finest variety called khasa, had a worldwide reputation. With the loss of political status in the second decade of the seventeenth century AD Sonargaon gradually lost its commercial importance as well. It again rose to some eminence in the nineteenth century AD when Panam Nagar was established as a trading centre in cotton fabrics, chiefly English piece goods. Sonargaon developed into a seat of Islamic learning under the versatile scholar Maulana Sharfuddin Abu Tawwamah of Bokhara who came to Sonargaon sometime between 1282 and 1287 and established a Khanqah and madrasa wherein all branches of Islamic learning as well as secular sciences were taught and studied.

National Mosque of Bangladesh

It is the National Mosque of Bangladesh. Its construction began on 1960. Architect T Abdul Hussain Thariani was commissioned to design the mosque complex. The plan was included shops, offices, libraries and parking areas within the complex. The design of the mosque reflects the architecture of the period as can be seen from the use of a white and almost cube-form for the main building. A Mosque without a dome over the roof of its main prayer hall must have been a unique experiment. The main building is eighst storied and 33 meters high from the ground level. The area of the main prayer hall is 2464 SQ meters with a mezzanine floor of 171 SQ metres at the eastern side. Verandas surround the hall on three of its four sides. The mihrab of the hall is rectangular instead of semi-circular. The Baitul Mukarram mosque is modern in its architectural style. It has found its place in the hearts of the Muslims because of the resemblance of its form to the Holy Kaaba at Makkah.

Paharpur - Buddhist

It is treated as the Largest Buddhist Seat of Learning of South Asia. It is a small village, 5 km west of Jamalganj in the greater Rajshahi district, where the remains of the most important and the largest known monastery south of the Himalayas has been excavated. This 7^th century AD archaeological find covers an area of approximately 11 hectare. The entire establishment measures more than 300 meters and varies from 3.5 to 4.5 meters in height with an elaborate gateway complex on the north, there are 45 cells on the north and 44 in each of the other three sides, with a total number of 177 rooms.

The architecture of the pyramidal cruciform temple is profoundly influenced by those of South-East Asia, especially Myanmar and Java. It had taken its name from a high mound, which looked like a Pahar or hillock. A site museum built recently houses a representative collection of objects recovered from the area. The antiquities in the museum include terracotta plaques, images of different gods and goddesses, pottery, coin inscription, ornamental bricks and other minor clay objects included as world heritage site first in Bangladesh.  

Sriti Shoudho

Jatiyo Smriti Soudho (Bengali: Jatio Sriti Shoudho) or National Martyrs' Memorial is a monument in Bangladesh. It is the symbol of the valour and the sacrifice of the martyrs of the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971, which brought the independence of Bangladesh from Pakistani rule. The monument is located in Savar, about 35 Kilometres north-west of the capital, Dhaka.

Plans for the monument were initiated right after the independence, in 1972. Following the site selection, road and land development, a nation-wide design competition was held in June, 1978. Following evaluation of the 57 submissions, Syed Mainul Hossain's design was chosen. The main structure and the artificial lake and other facilities were completed in 1982.

The monument is composed of 7 isosceles triangular pyramid shaped structures, with the middle one being the tallest. The highest point of the monument is 150 feet. There is an artificial lake, and several mass graves in front of the main monument.

Shaheed Minar

The Shaheed Minar (Bengali: Shohid Minar) is a national monument in Dhaka, Bangladesh, established to commemorate the martyrs of the Language Movement of 1952.

On February 21, 1952, dozens of students and political activists were killed when the Pakistani police force opened fire on Bengali protesters who were demanding equal status to their native tongue, Bangla. The massacre occurred near Dhaka Medical College and Ramna Park in Dhaka.

The Language Movement gained momentum and after a long struggle, Bangla was given equal status as Urdu. To commemorate the martyrs, the Shaheed Minar was designed and built by Hamidur Rahman, a Bangladeshi sculptor. The monument stood until the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971, when it was demolished completely during Operation Searchlight, a genocide carried out by the Pakistani Army resulting in an estimated 50,000 civilian deaths. After Bangladesh gained independence, it was rebuilt.

Today, the Shaheed Minar is the centre of cultural activities in Dhaka. Every year, the Language Movement is remembered at the monument.

Cox's Bazar

The history of Cox's Bazar begins in the Mughal period.  The name Cox's Bazar derived from the name of a British East India Company officer, Captain Hiram Cox after he opened a market considering facilities of local people. Captain Cox was appointed as the Superintendent of Palonki (today's Cox's Bazar) outpost after Warren Hastings came as the Governor of Bengal following the British East India Company Act in 1773. After January 1, 1874 Cox's Bazar was declared as a district of the Bengal Province under the British Crown. After 1947’s Independence it remained as a part of East Pakistan. Captain Advocate Fazlul Karim, the first Chairman (after independence from the British) of Cox's Bazar municipality established the Tamarisk Forest along on the beach to draw tourist attention in this town and also to protect the beach from tide  

Machu Picchu

Hiram Bingham, the credited discoverer of this historical site, along with several others, originally thought that the citadel was the traditional birthplace of the Inca of the “Virgins of the Suns”. Machu Picchu was built around 1460 at the height of the Inca Empire but abandoned less than 100 years later. It is likely that most of its inhabitants were wiped out by smallpox before the Spanish conquistadors arrived in the area, and there is no record of their having known of the remote city.

Other theories suggest that Machu Picchu was an Inca “llacta”, a settlement built to control the economy of these conquered regions. Yet others think that it may have been built as a prison for a select few who had committed heinous crimes against Inca society. Research conducted by scholars has convinced most archaeologists that rather than a defensive retreat, Machu Picchu was an estate of the Inca emperor, Pachacuti. Although Machu Picchu is located only about 80 kilometers (50 miles) from the Inca capital, Cusco, it was never discovered by the Spanish and consequently not envaded and destroyed. Over the centuries, the surrounding jungle grew over much of the site, and few knew of its existence. The site was found on July 24, 1911, by Hiram Bingham.

Machu Picchu was established as a World Heritage Site in 1983 when it was described as “an absolute masterpiece of architecture and a unique testimony to the Inca civilization”. On July 7, 2007, Machu Picchu was voted as one of the New Seven Wonders of the World.

The Pyramids at Giza

The first historically documented Egyptian pyramid is attributed to the architect Imhotep, who planned what Egyptologists believe to be a tomb for the pharaoh Djoser. Amenhotep is given the credit for being the first to conceive the notion of stacking mastabas on top of each other — creating an edifice composed of a number of “steps” that decreased in size towards its apex.  The Step Pyramid of Djoser was the result — which was designed to serve as a huge stairway by which the soul of the deceased pharaoh could move to the heavens. Such was the importance of Imhotep’s achievement that he was deified by later Egyptians.

The most prolific pyramid-building phase coincided with the greatest degree of absolutist pharaonic rule.  The most famous pyramids, those near Giza, were built during this time. Over time, as authority became less centralized, the ability and willingness to gather the resources required for construction on a massive scale decreased, and later pyramids were smaller, less well-built, and often hurriedly constructed.

When the Great Pyramid of Egypt was built it was 146 meters (438 feet) high. Time has worn the pyramid down by 10 meters (30 feet) and it still continues to erode. The pyramid was once covered with limestone that was painted a bright red color. The sides of the pyramid are carefully positioned to point north, south, east, and west. The bottom of the pyramid has sides that measure 227 meters (681 feet) in length. It was designed so precise that the error margin between the sides is less then 1 percent.

It belonged to the Pharaoh Khufu and once held his body. The pyramid is made up of approximately two million blocks of limestone with each weighing more than two tons.  This pyramid today is the last wonder of the world that is still standing.

The Second Pyramid belongs to the Pharaoh Khafre. Unlike the pyramid of Khufu, the angle of this pyramid is 53 degrees. This pyramid is three meters shorter then Khufu’s and stands on the northern side of the Giza Plateau. The top of the pyramid has some limestone left with a white cap on top of the pyramid that can be still seen. This large tomb had been looted before archeologists found it.

The Third Pyramid or the The pyramid of Menkaure is the smallest of the three pyramids. Its design is not as well detailed as the other two pyramids. Although the pyramid was not complete when Menkaure died, his son Shepseskaf took the task to finish the large project. This pyramid stands 66 meters high.

Colosseum

The Colosseum was originally called the Flavian Amphitheater. It was named after its builders, the emperors Vespasian and Titus, both from the Flavian family. Construction began around 70 AD near the Palatine, Esquiline, and Caelian hills. The Colosseum was built to entertain the masses with barbaric games, such as the famous gladiator games.

The opening celebration was a 100 days of games in which thousands of animals and gladiators were killed. The Colosseum was finished in 80 AD and can accommodate more than 50,000 people. . Often times, the Colosseum was flooded in order to stage small naval battles. The emperor had his own entrance to the Colosseum, and from his private “box seat” he decided the fate of gladiators that had been defeated.  Beneath the floor of the Colosseum was a maze of passageways, and temporary holding pens for the animals. The floor of the arena was wood covered with sand. A manual elevator was used to raise the animals from the basement up to the arena floor. The walls of the subterranean passageways can still be seen today when you visit the site.

The Colosseum is also a marvel of efficiency. The Romans created tickets and assigned seating long before modern sports arenas came into existence. Before a game, a spectator would receive a ticket which had a number that corresponded to one of the 79 entrance arches. All arches had numbers above them. The ticket also included a level, and a seat number.

For almost 400 years, The Colosseum was used regularly and has survived through earthquakes, neglect, and the pillaging of popes who took its marble for their own buildings. It fell into despair for many centuries after its use, and has only been preserved in the last century.

Petra

This site in Jordan has been inhabited since very ancient times. Petra reached its greatest importance under the Nabataeans, an ancient people whose original homeland was in northeastern Arabia. They migrated westward in the 6th century BC and eventually settled at Petra. Not much is known about the Nabateans’ history before 312 BC, when Petra was unsuccessfully attacked by Seleucid forces. Petra was also made famous by the third Indiana Jones movie.

By the 1st century BC the powerful and rich  Nabataean kingdom that extended from Damascus in the north to the Red Sea in the south, and Petra was home to as many as 30,000 people. It was during this period that the most amazing structures of Petra were built, including the Treasury, the Great Temple and the Qasr el-Bint el-Faroun.

In the 1st century AD the Siq was paved and the beautiful classical theater was constructed. After annexation, Roman touches were added to Petra such as the colonnaded cardo. A Nabataean-style tomb was built in Petra for the Roman governor of Arabia Sextius Florentius (127 AD), and a high-ranking Roman soldier was buried in another tomb. The Urn Tomb also dates from this period (2nd-3rd century).

Various tombs and temples at Petra were also used as churches, including the Monastery and the Urn Tomb.

Christianity arrived in the 4th century, and a Byzantine church, whose ruins can still be seen at Petra, was built around 450-500 AD.

Parthenon

In 447 B.C. the construction of the Parthenon began. The Parthenon is a large temple and its artistic appeal emanates from the refinement of many established norms of Greek architecture, and from the quality of its sculptural decoration. It is the most important surviving building of Classical Greece, generally considered to be the culmination of the development of the Doric order. The Parthenon is a temple of the Greek goddess Athena, built in the 5th century BC on the Athenian Acropolis. I

The Parthenon took the place of an older temple of Athena that was destroyed in the Persian invasion of 480 BC. Standard to most Greek temples, the Parthenon was used as a treasury, and for some time served as the treasury of the Delian League.  The Parthenon was converted into a Christian church dedicated to the Virgin in the 6th century AD.  After the Ottoman conquest, it was transformed into a mosque in the early 1460s. In September 1687, an Ottoman ammunition dump inside the building was ignited by Venetian bombardment. The explosion severely damaged the Parthenon and its sculptures.

Taj Mahal

One of the finest examples of Mughal architecture, a style that combines elements from Persian, Turkish, Indian, and Islamic architectural styles is The Taj Mahal.  The Taj Mahal is a mausoleum located in Agra, India and was constructed under Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal. Ustad Ahmad Lahauri is generally considered as the main designer of Taj Mahal. In 1631, Shah Jahan, emperor during the Mughal Empire’s period of greatest prosperity, was griefstricken when his third wife, Mumtaz Mahal died. The construction of Taj Mahal begun shortly after Mumtaz’s death with the main mausoleum completed in 1648. The buildings around the garden were finished five years later. The Taj Mahal complex was completed in the year 1653.

In 1983, Taj Mahal became a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In 2008, it was named one of the new Seven Wonders of the World.

Tikal

During the Maya civilization, the glorious city of Tikal thrived in what is now part of Guatemala. In the heart of the city were palaces and lofty pyramids topped with temples. The ancient site of Tikal was once home to an estimated 100,000 Maya.  Tikal declined as Maya civilization and the region suffered the mysterious collapse that marked the end of their classic period around AD 900,. Some possible noted reasons for the collapse of the great Maya cities like Tikal include environmental degradation, overpopulation, drought, and the long history of warfare in the Maya’s region.

Over many centuries, the vacated buildings of Tikal were repossesed by the jungle. Some structures have now been cleared and restored, but most of Tikal still lies underneath a canopy of tropical forest.

According to some scientist, Tikal was one of the greatest and most populated cities of the Mayan civilization, at its peak sustaining some 200,000 people within its 30 square miles. A fraction of Tikal’s more than 3,000 buildings have been excavated, allowing visitors to see temples, tombs, palaces, and religious monuments with hieroglyphic inscriptions. Tikal is a 50-year-old national park, and a UNESCO natural and cultural World Heritage site since 1979, it is a national symbol with well-established protection measures.