ABSTRACT
The gain of independence in 1947 brought with it both the need and the opportunity to ‘build’ Pakistan as a postcolonial country. This not only meant nation building in the abstract sense, but also raised the challenge of how the new state could inscribe itself – ideologically and structurally – in the urban environments of major cities like Lahore, Karachi, Dhaka, and eventually Islamabad. Urban planning and housing policy were both new and obvious priorities for policy makers in the 1950s: the impact of partition had made many of the large cities of Pakistanis ungovernable, and this required urgent administrative interference that went beyond the much more limited practices of colonial urban planning. Moreover, as the successor state to British India that did not inherit the symbolic and infrastructural assets of a historic capital city, Pakistan also had to face the challenge of creating a new urban focal point that would express the significance of national liberation. Also, the international context was favourable to an age of city building. The experience of the Second World War had brought urban reconstruction to the forefront of international development discourse, with new bodies such as the United Nations and the Colombo Plan actively encouraging comprehensive state intervention to control rapid urbanisation. International entrepreneurs and architects operating in ‘developing’ countries around the world looked to Pakistan in search of projects and business opportunities, among them greats such as Michel Ecochard and Le Corbusier, or Doxiadis Associates, the future creators of Islamabad.2
