Marina Tabassum is no ordinary architect. The Bait Ur Rouf Mosque on the outskirts of Dhaka, resplendent in its perforated brickwork and earthy red hue, stands testimony to her genius and determination.

Tabassum is a woman who built a mosque in a country where women seldom enter one. In the process, she won both respect and the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 2016.

As this video, produced by Claudia Hinterseer for China Daily’s weekly mini-documentary series “Urban Tales” shows, the land on which the mosque stands was donated by Tabassum’s grandmother, and it was she who asked the young architect to undertake the challenging task. Tabassum prepared her design in 2005-2006 and it took her around six years to finish building.

There were problems aplenty. The mosque had to be built in a dense suburb of the Bangladesh capital. An incorrect survey drawing – the direction of Mecca was wrong – added to the challenge.

Funds were mostly sourced from charitable organisations and individual donors. Tabassum, however, was sure of her building material – brick. “Architecture has to be rooted to a place,” she explains simply. The bricks are exposed, both on the inside and the outside of the mosque, and the whole structure is raised slightly to prevent flooding.

“The mosque was raised on a plinth on a site axis creating a 13-degree angle with the qibla [a line pointing towards the Kabah in Mecca] direction, which called for innovation in the layout,” a brief on the mosque on the Aga Khan Development Network website reads. The problem was solved when a “cylindrical volume was inserted into a square, facilitating a rotation of the prayer hall, and forming light courts on four sides”.

At the end, the Bait Ur Rouf mosque is a tribute to a glorious period of Islamic architecture during Bengal’s Sultanate period. It is also a shout-out to one woman’s eye for detail, and deep understanding of her heritage.