My point of view:
on Architecture and Travel

Interview Date: 11-05-2011

What is the importance of architectural tourism?

I think it’s the key importance of any country because you are showcasing your heritage, your culture, your buildings, your dynamics through architecture. That ranges from hundrends of years ago to the present. So you’re actually showing an interface of history as well as the present and the future all rolled into one.

Travel is wonder and imagination for the brain what food is for the body, it is of extreme importance even today unless you feel and experience a place and its people, you would never know. The mind and the heart have to be in sync and travel does that for you and this is not only for architects, everybody should travel whenever the chance comes their way. It makes you aware of so many different cultures and people in general.

There are beautiful people all over the world and it’s great to meet them and make friends with them. I don’t like to use the word networking, but the word friends. In every country you travel to, you actually make a friend and you want to come back and extend that friendship. Apart from people it is the architecture that beckons you, history that entices you, the footprints of civilizations developments and achievements can be easily studied through architecture.

Some of my most splendid moments that I recall are inevitably tied to a building or a structure. My experience at Alhambra (Spain) still gives me goose bumps, my trip to Moenjodaro  (Pakistan) left me in awe of the dexterity of the civilization where as it took me a day to enter Pompidou Center (Paris) as I was so much in awe of the structure that I just couldn’t get enough of it. So is the case with Barcelona I have to do my Gothic quarter pilgrimage every time I am in the city but I keep doing it. The list is endless.

What do you think is the added value that architecture creates within a city?

Architecture is for posterity and is a face of the country’s advancement and history at the same time. The duality creates a tension so vibrant that it leaves one enthralled and is a salute to man’s ingenuity and creativity. Architecture does not happen in isolation, consider the Louvre in Paris it is the entire neighborhood, the classical structures overlooking the glass chasm of I. M Pei structure; an oasis sitting amongst the stone structures.

This is what architecture does, it creates magic! History enthralls me and I like to explore cities and generally on foot, there is no better way than to get lost in the city and find your way through in the evening, as there is a ready plan of the city in ones hand. Architecture gives an order to our lives and that is what it does to a city and its inhabitants.

It is important to have events like WAF because that is one way of interacting with the architectural fraternity on a global scale. We are all sitting in our own countries hosting our own events but when we interact in such platforms the issues get global and are not insular. The consistent energy crises and the address to it, global warming and architecture of the new millennium are all issues that are discussed to strengthen and share to make an actual difference.

I don’t like to use the word reinventing, but are learning platforms that can further be experimented at home front. As for those cities hosting such events, I think the city is highlighted, the history is revisited, its architecture and its architects are accolade, that definitely leaves a mark in one’s mind and memory. 

How did you come with this idea in the country of Pakistan?

I’ve done a lot of traveling and been to a lot of countries. I’ve lived in different continents and every time I moved around I observed the plethora of publications on historical buildings, on architecture and architects of the country where I was living.

It pained me to see not a book or editorial from Pakistan. That was a time when I was not living in Pakistan and I was determined that if I went back will start something in the country that would actually showcase the Pakistani architecture, design and art and position it on a global platform. 

How would you characterize the modern Pakistani architecture?

Pakistani architecture is rudderless, there is no one building that I can say is Pakistani architecture but then I question is that required. We have a great history the footprints of which can be captured by many a built structures. Moen-jo-daro is a great example of a great civilization that flourished here.

As long as architectures addresses its surroundings and resolves environmental issues and adds a joy to its inhabitants it is great architecture, ofcourse for us architects it goes a mile further if the built structure is also addressed aesthetically and creatively. And believe me there are many such jewels in Pakistan.

Globalization is a sprawl to such an extent that if you plant one building in Karachi and plant the same building in Dubai or Singapore or even Canada, it would all be the same. But if the same building is sited and has some kind of an ocular aspect, some kind of traditional roots coming from the region, not promoting regionalism but if something from the region is picked up and translated to that building, it definitely makes that building a Pakistani one, or a Singaporean one.

But that is another issue, whether we want to embrace globalization or focus on regionalism or, for now, think “green”. So, there are different parameters challenging us in this fast and furious changing world that needs to be addressed hence modern architecture keeps reinventing itself.

Pakistan is a country with great history. Designing a modern building within this context is a complex procedure. Is critical regionalism an approach to modern Pakistan architecture?

Yes, designing modern structure in a historical context is always challenging and we have different eras of buildings sitting on one street for example at a major intersection in Karachi you have colonial structures like Frere Hall, Sindh club building, A post partition Neutra designed building and then some modern structures all sitting in close proximity to one another just like the winning project of Zaha Hadid Maxxi musem in one of the historical cities of the world; Rome.

Hence Pakistan is also not far behind, it is for the world to explore and learn about Pakistan and its architecture and that is where ADA comes in, it’s a window to the country’ creativity.

At the end, can you please provide your personal proposal for 10 buildings (constructed and visitable) which you think as the most important worldwide that someone must visit anyway?

This keeps changing for me quite often. I would advise the students to look up history first because that’s where an architectural journey starts. But my all time favorites are:

- Alhambra (Spain)

- Pink Palace Jaipur (India)

- Victoria Mansion (Calcutta, India)

- St. Marks Square (Venice, Italy)

- Parc Guell (Barcelona Spain)

- The Louvre (Paris, France)

- Jewish Museum (Berlin, Germany)

- Modern Art Museum, Fort Worth (Dallas, USA)

- Habitat (Montreal, Canada)

- OCAD and the surrounding precinct (Toronto, Canada)

- Mies Van der Rohe Pavalion (Barcelona, Spain)

- Falling Water (Pennsylvania USA)

- Ronchamp cathedral (Paris, France)

- Millennium pedestrian bridge (London, UK)

The list seem endless now that I start serious thinking hence I will stop now as I think have far exceeded your required 10 number.

 

 

 

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