Once home to the largest concentration of curry houses in the UK, Brick Lane in London's East End has long played an vital role as the home of migrant communities.
For years it has been central to the Bangladeshi community in Britain, but recent investment in this part of London has drastically changed the face of the Bangla Town area.
The 'Beyond Banglatown' project grew out of a larger piece of research on the Bengal diaspora which explored Muslim migration from the north-eastern Indian state of Bengal in the period after partition. millipedia created the website for this earlier research Bangla Stories.
The research for ‘Beyond Banglatown’ was undertaken by researchers from LSE Cities, London School of Economics and Centre on Dynamics of Ethnicity, University of Manchester and explored the changing fortunes of Banglatown’s restaurants, and the implications of this change for the Bangladeshi community in East London, the curry restaurants and for Brick Lane itself.
The pages of the website capture the project's findings, tracing the rich and complex history of Bengali migration to East London, the development of Banglatown and changes to Brick Lane's Bangladeshi-owned curry restaurants over time. It also provides a snapshot of the contemporary context of the street, including broader and more recent processes of urban change and gentrification.
We created a bespoke design incorporating interactive maps and graphs to present the project in an appealing and engaging way.
Thank you for all of your hard work on the Beyond Banglatown website. It is, as always, a wonderful piece of work on your part, which has taken our research and brought it to life.
Thank you for all of your advice, vision and creativity (and patience) throughout this process. I feel very lucky that we have been able to collaborate with you on this, as on our earlier projects, from Banglastories onwards.
Professor Claire Alexander - University of Manchester