An underground museum at Suhrawardy Udyan, where the surrender of 16 December 1971 was signed, beneath a 50-metre tower of light.
The Museum of Independence sits under the ground at Suhrawardy Udyan — the field where the 7 March speech was delivered in 1971 and where the Pakistani forces surrendered on 16 December the same year. It opened in 2015, designed by Kashef Mahboob Chowdhury and Marina Tabassum, who won the national design competition for the site.
The display is a single continuous timeline: more than three hundred historical photographs set into 144 glass panels, running from Mughal Dhaka through the colonial period, the language movement, the war and independence. War memorabilia, foreign newspaper reports and a replica of the table on which the surrender was signed are shown alongside them.
Above ground stands the Independence Monument, a 50-metre tower of stacked glass panels that glows after dark, with a sunken plaza and a wall of water beside it. The complex also has a 155-seat auditorium.
Museums
Recommended
The country's largest museum: four floors of history, natural history, Liberation War and world civilisation galleries in the heart of Dhaka.
Shahbagh, Dhaka
Saturday – Wednesday: 10:30 AM – 4:30 PM
From ৳20
Details
Museums
Recommended
The story of 1971 told through objects given by the families of the martyrs, in a purpose-built museum at Agargaon.
Agargaon, Dhaka
Monday – Saturday: 10:00 AM – 5:00 PM
From ৳20
Details
Museums
Recommended
The Nawabs' pink palace on the bank of the Buriganga, restored room by room as a museum of nineteenth-century Dhaka.
Islampur, Dhaka
Saturday – Wednesday: 10:30 AM – 4:30 PM
From ৳20
Details