Islam, S. and Ahmed, I. (2015). Proposals for Image Reconstruction and Urban Regeneration: The Case of Khulna City, Bangladesh. Proceedings of the International Conference on ‘Cities, People and Places’ ICCPP 2015, Colombo, Sri Lanka.
This study provided a conceptual framework for transforming riverfronts into public realms particularly in reverfront cities like Khulna, Bangladesh.
Among the oldest cities of Bangladesh, that represents precious glories and remarkable heritage, Khulna is one placed on top. During the colonial period especially in the late 17th century AD, Khulna was given the attention to be developed as the river front business centre of the East part of grater Bangle. The land use pattern of Khulna city has been substantially influenced by river flow of Rupsha and a spinal road network, which makes the city growth linear with major commercial, administrative and residential zone. But lately unlike the other cities of the world Khulna failed to adopt the process of transformation of its traditional urban structures into a dynamic shape to cope with the urge of the modern day functionality. River front remains neglected back side of the city, only attends as a service corridor. Examining these experiences of Khulna, the paper attempts to acknowledge the historical past and through them to regain the lost connection to the city. Following the timeline, different master plans have been analyzed to understand and identify the characteristics of city transformation and how such detachments developed with the river Rupsha. Based on the outcome a conceptual framework is proposed to recreate connectivity with the river to make a new public realm alongside the riverbank which may help to recreate Khulna as a riverfront city.