Lord Curzon Hall of Dhaka University
Curzon Hall meant to be a town hall, was named after Lord Curzon, the Viceroy of India, who laid its foundation in 1904. A year later Bengal was partitioned and Dhaka became the capital of the newly created province of East Bengal and Assam. Following the annulment of partition in 1911 it was used as a premise of Dhaka College, and after the establishment of Dhaka University in 1921, became part of the university’s science section and continues as such. Laid out in a spacious and carefully maintained garden, this double storied brick building has a large central hall, lateral wings on the east and west with several rooms, and a continuous verandah on all sides.
The Curzon Hall has attained a great significance in the history of the language movement. It was here, in 1948, the students of Dhaka University uttered their first refusal to accept Mohammed Ali Jinnah’s declaration that Urdu alone would be the state language of the then Pakistan.
