Five Interesting Facts about the National Memorial of Bangladesh

1. The blueprint of our National Memorial was done by Syed Mainul Hossain. Interestingly, he was not directly assigned as the architect for the project, rather won the privilege by winning the design competition held by the government in 1978, out of 56 other contestants. 
2. Syed Mainul Hossain, won the national design competition for the National Memorial from a pool of 57 participants when he was only 26 years old. As legend has it, Hossain’s design was the jury’s unanimous choice.
3. The construction of the spirelets of the National Memorial was done within only three months by M/S Concord Ltd. and that too using the good old local bamboo scaffolding technique.
4. The foundation of the National Memorial was inaugurated by the hands of the Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman himself, within a few months of the nation’s victory, in 1972. It involved acquiring land for the site and the construction of roads for communication, requiring a budget of the then amount of Tk.26 lacs. 
5. The second part of the National Memorial Construction project took place in between 1974 and 1982 – requiring an expenditure of Tk 3.77 crores in order to build the mass graves, pavements, parking spaces, helipad, etc. And finally, the main structure of the seven spirelets was done in August, 1982, costing Tk 848.65 lakh, ending the construction phase. The site was later ornated with an artificial lake and a 24 acre green belt of bushes and trees, surrounding the 84 acres compound. 

Source: thedailystar.net