By Md. Mahdi-Al-Muhtasim Nibir
DHAKA, Oct 15, 2018 (BSS) – Dhaka University Teacher-Student Center (TSC), popularly known as social and cultural heart of the campus, is going to have a modern look as a fashionable building with unique architectural grandeur will be erected inside the center keeping up its Greek architectural heritage.
Historically prominent for rendering services to students and teachers as well as to other communities of the society, the TSC will have the five-storey building with all latest facilities on the site of its swimming poll not now in use.
The would be architecturally unique structure is expected to prompt the teachers and students of the university to believe that the TSC will regain its past glory as the country’s most oldest university will be reverberated with renewed social and cultural feat.
Came into being in 1961, the TSC is an all-campus activity centre designed for relaxation and guidance and resounded by the teachers, students of different halls, activities of a socio-cultural organizations with various programmes of educational, co-curricular and entertainments.
The TSC is now devoid of its former film lab, audio centre and swimming pool and the other existing facilities are also in shambles. The new project of establishing the multi-storey building with improved facilities at the place of abandoned swimming pool will be seen as an inspiration for forward-looking vision for around 40,000 students of DU.
The new building will accommodate sufficient rehearsal rooms for cultural programmes, two modern auditoriums, toilets, a cafeteria, indoor games rooms, a library, a reading room, art and music rooms, bookshops, underground car parking and office rooms for TSC-based socio-cultural organizations,” TSC director AMM Mohiuzzaman Chowdhury told BSS.
Talking to BSS correspondent, general students expressed their joy at hearing the news of establishment of a new complex on TSC premises.
“In general sense it is appreciable because organizations of DU will get rooms and enough spaces. Students will get guidance, relaxation and counseling in a wider form from the concerned places there. The new structure will help increase presence of students on TSC premises,” Mahmuda Kabir, a third-year student of Department of Genetic Engineering and Bio-Technology told BSS.
The beautiful TSC complex designed by Greek architect Konstantinos Doxiadis, was established with the objective of facilitating cultural and recreational activities of the teachers and students of DU.
The leaders and activists of TSC-based socio-cultural organisations are delighted to hear the news of a new establishment and welcomed the decision.
“This kind of infrastructural development is needed as it is the demand of time. We have scarcity of accommodation for rehearsal and other activities. We demand the university authority to take necessary steps to set up the new building as soon as possible,” Ragib Rahman, president of Dhaka University Cultural Society told the national news agency.
Applauding the initiative, Sanwarul Haque Sony, president of Dhaka University Drama Troupe said, “I think such an establishment will add a new glory to our cultural activities. But the historical establishments should be protected.”
Director of DU Planning and Development Office Jibon K Mishra said that under the Development Project Proposal (DPP), the university has made a design of the building marking the centenary of DU and sent it to the University Grants Commission (UGC) in August last. The UGC has already approved the plan, he added.
DU Pro-Vice Chancellor Professor Dr Muhammad Samad said the new establishment will keep intact the aesthetic beauty of TSC premises.
“At first, a decision was taken to establish a 20-storey building. But we have taken to set up a 5-storey complex instead as prominent architects suggested that a high-rise building will erase the scenic beauty of the Greek architectures of TSC,” he told BSS.
Recalling his participation in different cultural movements, Prof Samad, also president of Jatiya Kabita Parishad, said once the TSC was the birthplace of the country’s different cultural movements.
He expressed the hope that after the completion of the new building, the TSC will regain its glory to boost up the cultural practices imbued with the spirit of Liberation War.