Film screening: “Louis Kahn’s Tiger City” with Sundaram Tagore

Join filmmaker Sundaram Tagore for a screening of “Louis Kahn’s Tiger City,” which chronicles how renowned architect Louis I. Kahn built a 20th–century architectural landmark in war-torn Bangladesh. In this feature-length documentary, Tagore travels in the architect’s footsteps, embarking on a worldwide quest to understand how an Estonian-born American visionary came to build a daringly modern and monumental parliamentary complex in South Asia. “What force of will,” Tagore marvels, “enabled Kahn to design a Capital Complex on the ‘tabula rasa’ of the rice paddies of Bangladesh? Kahn conceived of a unique and provocative design and the Bangladeshi people upheld his vision, even as their country was destroyed by war.” Bringing to life the story of Bangladesh’s independence movement, Tagore’s film thoughtfully portrays Kahn’s architectural tribute to the spirit of the Bangladeshi people. “Futuristic and ancient at the same time,” says Tagore, “Kahn’s complex was the beating heart of a newly-formed democratic nation.”

ABOUT THE FILMMAKER

Sundaram Tagore is an Oxford-educated art historian, gallerist, and award-winning filmmaker. Born in India in 1961, he grew up traveling between Calcutta, New Delhi and the Himalayas. His academic pursuits — focused on Frank Lloyd Wright and Japan, American architect Louis Kahn’s work in Bangladesh, and Indian artists’ response to European modernism — reflect his passion for cross-cultural exchange. A descendent of the influential, Nobel Prize-winning poet Rabindranath Tagore, Sundaram upholds the legacy of his family’s penchant for East-West dialogue through his films, contributions to numerous exhibitions, and multicultural programming at his four art galleries. 

Image: The National Parliament House, Sher-e-Bangla Nagar, Dhaka, Bangladesh. Photography by Sundaram Tagore Gallery, New York.