Study of spatial organization of traditional shop-houses of old Dhaka

Abstract

The evolution of Old Dhaka and its transformation is closely embedded with its rich socio-cultural tradition that makes the city historically significant. Like many other Asian cities shop-houses emerged and evolved in the pre-urban core of Old Dhaka as a distinct building typology in its spatial arrangement. In fact from the pre-Mughal period, the shop-houses are retained in between the borders of Dholai Khal and the River Buriganga, settled in different mahallas by various craft based hereditary trader communities. Since its beginning, Dhaka city has flourished in many folds and transformed into one of the Mega City of the world through the interplay of politics and trade, but the Old Dhaka, particularly the earliest core retained its indigenous settlement pattern with its traditional house forms due to its nonpareil social structure, rich cultural heritage and unique architectural morphology of built environment. Here the traditional shop-houses, sometimes with trivial modification by adopting the socio-economic needs, are still vibrant and vigorous in their function and activity. The spatial pattern and ‘live-work’ environment of these shop-houses proposes that certain social and cultural facets are interwoven within a rich cultural whole in this unique type of dwellings.

The spatial organization of the traditional shop-houses and how it relates with its socio cultural background has been revealed in this study to understand the underlying principles that formulates such a sustainable morphology which demonstrate the celebration of life for such a long period of time before the complete advent of new form and formulation. Space syntax analysis has been applied on 15 (fifteen) traditional shop-houses in Shakhari Bazar, Tanti Bazar and Panni Tola locality. The study focused on the domestic activity patterns in relation to the spatial arrangement patterns in this unique houseform.

By analyzing plans in topological terms this research established the genotype of Old Dhaka traditional shop-houses. The results also confirm that although the forms as well as the elements of the traditional shop-houses have been settled by different trade groups in different locations and altered historically over time there is no significant difference in-between the spatial configuration and space use pattern within the configuration. The finding indicates that the underlying principles of social and cultural dimensions govern the pattern of spatial configuration of Old-Dhaka shop-houses. This specifies that the common domestic spaces of Old Dhaka shop-houses actually represent the social life and cultural identity of Old Dhaka society.