Wallpaper* Architect Of The Year 2026: Marina Tabassum on a building that made her smile

I can name a few buildings that made me smile. And then there are a few that left me with a sense of awe, such as the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. There’s a difference. I will never attempt to emulate the awe-inspiring ones. They are to be revered and remembered. The ones that make you smile are inspirational. You can embody the experience and make it part of your design thinking.

Marina Tabassum on Geoffrey Bawa’s Lunuganga, and more

For anyone to experience a building, the atmosphere matters, the company matters, the season and the light matters. One very special place for me was Geoffrey Bawa’s Lunuganga. It made me want to build a garden. I had seen images in books and, for a very long time, reminisced about being there someday. Sri Lanka is not far. So after winning the Aga Khan Award in 2016, we went on a Bawa tour in Sri Lanka with all the architects who worked on the Bait Ur Rouf mosque project.

We stayed one night in Lunuganga. I discovered the effortlessness of unpretentious architecture whose main objective is to frame nature and the vistas. Architecture is passive, and nature takes centre stage. Yet, one cannot ignore the beauty of the architecture, which is used as threshold space, transitioning the exploration from one garden event to another. It was a revelation that architecture need not always be theatrical, taking centre stage.

In my design, I’m always trying to think about how one would feel and experience the spaces. So movement through the spaces, feelings and connections matter most to me. One other architecture I can recall that not only made me smile but also made me float is Peter Zumthor’s Therme Vals. I went with a friend on a gorgeous summer day. I enjoy the meditative silence of the mountains. This building, being part of the mountain, exerts calm and contemplative energy. It allows you to connect with the spaces that are an assemblage of caves, water and having private moments and also generous openness, being part of a community.

The building that made me go round and round around it was Le Corbusier’s chapel in Ronchamp. It was a mixture of a sense of awe and visceral joy. The form transcends architecture. I don’t think I can generalise what brings a smile when I visit a work of architecture. It can be the experience of moving through the spaces, the atmosphere created by the light, sound and tactility of the surfaces, or it can be the uniqueness of the form.

How a building connects with the user or visitor is important. Not every building we design can achieve that. Quite often, the functional complexity takes priority. But every building can attempt to have one space that allows that visceral connection. In my opinion, that connection is universal and transcends the boundaries of time.

marinatabassumarchitects.com