KARACHI: Heritage sites and cultural spaces are part of the identity of a city as they keep its relation with its past alive in a special way along with strengthening and invigorating its present, too, and therefore, it is a collective responsibility of citizens and government to preserve and protect all such places in Karachi.

This was the key takeaway of a seminar titled “Bunder Road se Keamari: Confluence of Cultures” which brought together architects, archaeologists, artists and designers at the Khaliqdina Hall here on Sunday to discuss Karachi’s cultural heritage and shed light on some small efforts being made to preserve it.

Ironically, however, as the seminar was about to start, Kanji Building, a majestic heritage site from 1868, was being demolished on the city’s Outram Road. And as Durriya Kazi, who moderated the seminar, made that announcement during the presentation of an artist who had recently made a drawing of the Kanji Building among many others as part of his project, he and everybody else in the hall felt frustrated and, perhaps, enraged, too.

But as all of them also felt helpless, the seminar continued. The focus of the first three talks was the work that has been done by different partners to renovate and revitalise the Khaliqdina hall and its library.

Hundreds of heritage buildings are in dilapidated condition and face demolition threat, seminar told

The first talk was delivered by Saima Zaidi, a communication designer and founder of Numaish-Karachi, an interdisciplinary collective focused on activating underutilised public spaces for cultural production and as inclusive urban retreats.

Saima started with the history and significance of the Khaliqdina Hall and Library and how it lay in a dilapidated condition before being restored and renovated by her team along with other partners. Thereafter, she spoke about the projects of the Numaish-Karachi team. One of them is the “Reading Room SeriesKarachi” at the hall which aims at providing an urban cultural retreat for the citizens. “We along with our partners renovated the hall and library and now it is providing various cultural activities for local communities since June 2024 along with access to the newly conserved and digitised literary assets in the library,” she said.

The second talk, “Interior Restoration of a Multi-Cultural Public Space in Hyper Transforming City” was by Sadiq and Polack Architects, who did the interior renovation of the hall. Christophe Polack and Asiya Sadiq explained to the audience how research and planning was carried out in the interior restoration of a heritage site and how they did so at the Khaliqdina Hall. “Beside all efforts and hard work, I would say it is maintenance that is most important after the restoration of such buildings,” emphasised Asiya.

A panel discussion titled “Digital Documentation” included three presentations, mainly focused on the importance of digital recording and preserving of the data of heritage sites.

Amer Bazl Khan, director MaritimEA Research, Karachi, spoke about the essential steps in heritage conservation through the use of digital tools and technologies to record, preserve, and manage the physical and historical aspects and data of cultural heritage sites.

The second presentation was by, Ozair B. Mansoor, an artist and designer, who is preserving such sites in the city through drawings. It was titled “Karachi’s Lost Communities — The Serai and Bunder Quarters”. Mansoor spoke the architectural legacy of communities no longer living in the city, but whose remaining buildings and structures enriched Karachi’s cultural environment.

His drawings mainly focused on such buildings, including the Rustomjee Building, Sevakunj Building, Luxmi Building, and the earlier mentioned Kanji Building to name a few.

The third presentation, “Adaptive Reuse: Interpret, Investigate, and Intervene”, was given by Qurratulain Poonawala, head of Department for Interior Design, Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture, Karachi.

She emphasised how it is first important to thoroughly interpret a cultural heritage site instead of just starting work on it based on available information. “The first step is to interpret the theories and methodologies that shape the idea of preservation and reuse through the examination of its place in history, its relationship to adjacencies in art, culture, climate and society. Then comes investigating an existing building within the local city context and develop perspectives around them,” she said.

“Building on that, strategies should be formulated to intervene within the existing architectural shells to assess the spatial transformation capabilities of these built structures, not as a fragment but rather a part of a bigger urban and social fabric,” she added.

Another panel, “Creative Karachi”, had two presenters. Ayla Raza, an architect by profession, discussed the development of classical music in the Indian subcontinent and then its evolution in Karachi and also spoke about the role of the city as a patron city of such arts.

Nusrat Khawaja, a researcher and curator, focused on the art in Karachi from 1947-1967 and identified the new strands in art that emerged in the first twenty years of Karachi while it was the capital of Pakistan.

The speakers were also of the view that hundreds of cultural heritage buildings in the city are in a dilapidated condition and face various threats and, therefore, a collective action by the government as well as the citizens is needed to reclaim and revitalise all such sites.

Earlier, the welcome address was delivered by Mayor Murtaza Wahab, who chose to remain silent about the demolition of a heritage site in the city.

Published in Dawn, January 20th, 2025