‘The allegations regarding faulty procedures and violation of established norms are based on the wrong assumption that the relocation project was an exercise in conservation,’ defends Syed Akeel Bilgrami
IT is surprising that many reputed architects think that the Nusserwanjee Building Relocation Project is a publicity stunt, says Syed Akeel Bilgrami, an eminent architect and founder-member of the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture.
Is it publicity for the school? If it needs to, surely the school has simpler and more direct means to publicize itself, argues Mr Bilgrami. Or is it publicity for the Nusserwanjee Building? The building does not need any publicity. It had proudly stood for a hundred years in Kharadar and has been a witness to Karachi’s history and phenomenal growth. It will witness the next hundred years at its new location by the sea front, he hopes.
Mr Bilgrami was reacting to the criticizm that the project was a publicity stunt rather than a professional reincarnation of a historic monument.
The management of the school had, at the outset, consciously decided, for reasons which were irrelevant to the issue under discussion, that the project would not be publicized until it was successfully accomplished. Thus, whenever in the past it had been projected in the print media or on the television screen, it was always at the initiative and persistence of a curious journalist or a TV channel hungry for off-beat news, he points out.
On the contrary, time and again, friends and well-wishers of the school had lamented the fact that not enough publicity was given by the school to the project, which, in the words of Mr Bilgrami, is the “largest relocation project in South Asia”.
To a question that the project did not come within the description of architectural conservation, Mr Bilgrami has this to say: “The school never claimed that the Nusserwanjee Building was an architectural conservation project as universally understood. A hundred-year-old four-storey warehouse and office building located in Kharadar which was to be demolished and inevitably consigned to history, was instead saved, dismantled stone by stone and re-erected eight kilometres away for adaptive re-use. It is simply a relocation project, if it needs to be categorized.”
The allegation that the procedure with which the project was carried out was not only faulty but also a serious violation of the accepted principles and guidelines of conservation, Mr Bilgrami said, was based “on the wrong assumption that the Nusserwanjee Building relocation was an exercise in conservation”.
Mr Bilgrami said: “Since we have agreed that it is not an architectural conservation project, discussion on the procedure adopted to carry out the relocation becomes irrelevant, and the allegation does not hold any water.”
Incidentally, the demolition contractor who is accused of having employed unskilled labour to dismantle the building, “completed the job within the stipulated three months” using common sense, traditional tools and indigenous technology. Only 50 stones were damaged or broken during the entire operation and in transit, out of about 26,000 pieces which were identified and retrieved. “One has grave doubts if the mortality rate of the stones and other material could have been any less if an expert conservationist was to handle the operation,” adds Mr Bilgrami rather sarcastically.
Giving the background of how and why the project of relocation was taken up, Mr Bilgrami recalls that it was on May 1, 1991, when 12 prominent architects of the city had a brainstorming session to evolve design criteria for a new campus. The school had just acquired a plot in Clifton’s Block 2 and since it was the first time that a custom-designed campus for an art and architecture institution was being built in Pakistan, it was expected that the brainstorming would generate some fresh, innovative ideas.
Interestingly, however, the consensus reached at the end of the day, perhaps half in jest, was that an ideal environment for a school of art is in and around an old building, and that the school should find some such structure and move into it.
Hardly a week later, Shahid Abdulla, one of the founders of the school, excitedly called to say he had found a beautiful old building, right in the heart of Kharadar, which was for sale and about to be demolished. Before one could express one’s reservations about the location, he quickly added: “We will save it and move it to the campus in Clifton.”
What he had seen was the hundred-year-old Nusserwanjee Building, a stone structure in two blocks of three and four storeys with large halls and high ceilings. Originally used as a warehouse and offices, it had ideal space for art and design studios.
It was rightly thought that if this building was to be transplanted at the new campus, the school would be able to, one, save it from the inevitable demolition and destruction, two, introduce a novel method, an alternative way, to save our architectural heritage, three, provide a hands-on, once-in-a-lifetime experience to both the faculty and students in the area of architectural conservation, and, finally, through the process of giving a fresh lease of life to the building, pay tribute and homage to, and perpetuate the memory of, the Nusserwanjee family, particularly of Jamshed Nusserwanjee Mehta, philanthropist, theosophist, the first mayor, the architect and father of modern Karachi — and without doubt, its most outstanding citizen.
In the meantime, the new campus of the Indus Valley School was designed and constructed with an appropriate space earmarked for the location of Nusserwanjee Building. The dismantling work started in April 1995.
When complete and fully functional, the Nusserwanjee Building will provide an additional space of 25,000 square feet. It will house the Architecture, Design and Painting Studios and also have an exhibition hall and a gallery to house the school’s permanent art collection.
Although the exterior of the building and most interior spaces would look almost exactly the same as original, the construction methodology had to be altered to cater to the current building codes. Vertical and horizontal steel section (which are encased in masonry during construction) had to be introduced to brace the structure.
Contrary to popular belief, the cost of relocating the Nusserwanjee Building has not been any higher than that of erecting any other similar new institutional building.
‘The allegations regarding faulty procedures and violation of established norms are based on the wrong assumption that the relocation project was an exercise in conservation,’ defends Syed Akeel Bilgrami 
