A few months back as I drove past the PIA Squash Complex, I was horrified to see a crane pulling the structure down. I thought: who had the audacity to order such an act? After all, the project was nominated for the first Aga Khan Award for architecture but was automatically dropped as my partner Hasanuddin Khan, the project’s architect, at the time had joined the Aga Khan Foundation, and being someone from the foundation he was not eligible to get the award. Many Karachiities know about the PIA Squash Complex built on Kashmir Road during Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s tenure. Back then, Hasanuddin Khan and I had returned from England after finishing our architectural studies from the prestigious Architectural Association School of Architecture in London. We were in our late twenties.

Air Marshal (retd) Nur Khan, CEO of Pakistan International Airlines, had entered into an agreement with the International Squash Federation that we, in Pakistan, would host the next big squash competition in Karachi in 1976. The air marshal engaged us as architects to design the project. Mr Nur Khan, being a strict disciplinarian, issued directives that all the contractor’s bills would be released in 48 hours so that the work continued round the clock. Occasionally, the air marshal would also visit the site to see if everything was going according to schedule.

Mr Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the charismatic prime minister of Pakistan, came to inaugurate the project in 1976. The project was widely praised.

After its construction, and when Mr Nur Khan quit Pakistan International Airlines, no one bothered to give attention to the complex; no one cared about its maintenance, upkeep, and funding. The restaurant was never opened, the huge walls were never used to sell paintings and no money was allotted for its upkeep. A few years back, Dawn lamented its condition and called it a disgrace, printing pictures of its poor condition.

All these years I wrote many letters to the PIA’s management, drawing their attention towards the non-existent funding for the complex; but there was no response.

In 1977, Gen Ziaul Huq overthrew the elected government of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and hanged him. Bearing this in mind, there is a question that I want to put to the senior officers in the armed forces: why did they eliminate a charismatic leader like Mr Zulfikar Bhutto? Is it because he was a civilian politician? Why do they not question the generals who come into power through the back door? In 1979, after Mr Bhutto’s execution the Aga Khan wanted to host the first ceremony of giving awards in the field of architecture in Lahore. I was troubled by this and wrote a letter to the Aga Khan requesting him to hold the ceremony in some other country as Gen Zia was a fascist. His Highness, the Aga Khan and the managing committee read my letter but they concluded that they had already entered into an agreement with the government of Pakistan, so they went ahead with their programme.

I ask Pakistan International: what was the logic behind tearing down a great piece of architecture. Designing a great building is like writing a good piece of literature, the only difference is that in architecture you can do it only once and the building is there for all to appreciate.

Luckily, the project is in the Aga Khan archives along with its pictures. Another question to be asked here is: apart from the Al Hamara project in Lahore, which other project, other than the PIA Squash Complex, was nominated for the Aga Khan Award for architecture? And the dimensions of a squash court are still the same. So if PIA or someone else wanted to build a four-sided see-through court they could have done it at some other site.

Now that the project has been dismantled I find it necessary to say to the authorities concerned that if they hire another architect to construct the new Squash Complex’s, his/her age should equal ours when we undertook the project -- which was late twenties -- the architect should win the Aga Khan award for architecture and international fame. If s/he wants “a piece of action (architectural fees)” then s/he must match our pace, build it in nine months and get another brilliant elected prime minister like Zulfikar Ali Bhutto to inaugurate it.