Award-winning Bangladeshi architect Marina Tabassum has been named among the 100 Most Influential People of 2024 list by the Time magazine.

Tabassum was among the Innovators on the list published by the magazine on Thursday.

The others on the list include singers Dua Lipa and Kylie Minogue, actress Alia Bhatt, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Formula One racing driver Max Verstappen and Russian opposition leader Yulia Navalnaya.   

About Tabassum, Time wrote that while she practises very locally, she teaches, lectures, and is recognised internationally, modelling architecture not as an individual signature but as a collective Esperanto.

“Altruism isn’t typically a term attributed to award-winning architects—a profession where signature has become a common adjective—but Marina Tabassum isn’t typical. She has developed a practice and a way of being that prioritises local cultures and values, as well as the perils faced by our shared planet,” the magazine wrote.

“Tabassum’s altruism even extends to buildings themselves. She cares for her creations as creatures partaking in the resources of our earth: describing her Bait Ur Rouf Mosque in Dhaka, Bangladesh, which won the prestigious Aga Khan Award, she said a building “has to be able to breathe without artificial aids.”

Elsewhere in the country, which faces increased flood risks due to climate change, she has developed houses that are cost-effective and easy to move.

In 2016, Tabassum and Kashef Mahboob Chowdhury of Bangladesh won the Aga Khan Award for the design of Dhaka's Bait Ur Rouf Mosque and Gaibandha's Friendship Centre, respectively.

Tabassum and Chowdhury both had finished their architecture studies in 1995 from the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology.

They then opened their joint architecture firm Urbana.

After a long spell of friendship, they tied the knot in 1997, but parted ways in 2005.

By then, they had designed the Independence Monument and Museum of Independence in Dhaka's Suhrawardy Udyan.

After separation, Tabassum opened her own firm Marina Tabassum Architects.