It’s great that in the age of Instagram and TikTok, architectural guides in printed form are still being published. Who would want to be without these informative companions when travelling to a faraway place? In a handy format, they provide a condensed and concise insight into the building culture of the destination. And printed material, at least one would hope, is still more reliable than the flood of superficial online news.

The new guide to Dhaka, recently published by Berlin-based publisher DOM as part of its cities and countries series, is dedicated to a city that is not yet on the itinerary of many architectural tourists. Apart from the fact that Louis I. Kahn’s epoch-making parliament complex stands there, probably only a few of us were and are familiar with the architecture scene in the world’s largest delta.

Exhibitions and comprehensive publications such as Bengal Stream (450 pages with photographs by Iwan Baan) or the small-format guide DAC - Dhaka may have awakened a broader public’s desire for discovery in recent years, but Bangladesh is still relatively unknown to many travellers and full of architectural gems. It is therefore commendable that DOM has turned its attention to Dhaka, even if the publishers falsely claim that their guide is the first on the tropical metropolis.

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