Kamalapur railway station

Kamalapur Railway Station, Dhaka, Bangladesh (Dhaka Kamalapur) কমলাপুর রেলস্টেশন
Bangladesh Railway Station
Kamalapur Railway Station, Dhaka
Location	Dhaka  Bangladesh
Coordinates	23°43′55″N 90°25′34″E / 23.7320°N 90.4262°E / 23.7320; 90.4262Coordinates: 23°43′55″N 90°25′34″E / 23.7320°N 90.4262°E / 23.7320; 90.4262
Line(s)	Narayanganj-Bahadurabad Ghat Line
Platforms	8
Construction
Structure type	Standard (on ground station)
Other information
Status	Functioning
History
Opened	January 1969

Kamalapur Railway Station is the central railway station in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The station is the largest in the country and the most important terminal for transportation between Dhaka and the rest of Bangladesh. It is also one of the most modern and striking buildings in Dhaka designed by American architect Robert Boughey. The railway station situated in the north-east side of Motijheel, was established in the early 1960s and started its operation from 1969.

There was only one railway station in Fulbaria. After the partition of Bengal, Dhaka became an important city and Kamalapur was selected for extension. Prior to the station being constructed, the land was a paddy field. At the beginning of the 1960s the station was built, and at that time it was one of the most important establishments in East Pakistan. It was mesmerizing to people at that time as there were not many beautiful structures in Dhaka. At that time consulting engineers, Pakistan LTD., established an architectural firm in Dhaka in 1960 named "Berger Engineers" in collaboration with the American firm Luis Berger Inc. The company had several architects working for them and teaching at East Pakistan University of Engineering and technology designed many institutional buildings up to 1967. An inconsistency can be traced in their work as of them had little knowledge and of them had little knowledge and experience of the local context, and often different architects were designing different architect building in the servre campus. Their works were comparatively national and neat.

Among the Berger architects, Robert Boughey maintained a consistency in architectural vocabulary, technical excellence and aesthetics in his creatives, concrete frame structures and its honest expression through ribbon window, non-load-bearing partition walls and cantilevered veranda as are some examples that characterized Boughey’s design. An inter-marriage of spatial and structural innovation culminated in his outstanding designs of the Kamalapur railway station, which is remarkable for the open petal shaped canopy unifying a number of otherwise disjointed buildings an innovative expression through architectural forms.