ABSTRACT
In the newly established Pakistan, the elite bureaucrats, political leaders, military generals and professionals advocated for a modern Islamic architecture and urban space that they believed would reflect the popular taste and ideology. By discussing works of American architect Edward Durell Stone and Greek architect/planner Constantinos Doxiadis, and the conflict over the design of Mohammad Jinnah’s mausoleum in Karachi, this chapter suggests that Islamic architecture in postcolonial Pakistan was a shifting discourse that did not have a precise contour and a fixed center; rather, Islamic architecture was used as a tactic to create a political narration of people’s representation in the governance and thus a false sense of people being empowered. The elite politicians’ and bureaucrats’ imagination of postcolonial “self” oscillates indecisively between tradition and modernity. The ambivalence and negotiations were informed by contested interpretations of Islam, the West and the Modern.
