Every living city is in continuous evolution. During its existence as a city, Karachi has been touched by the most diverse group of people. Conquerors and travellers, mystics and saints, artists and architects and merchants and economic migrants, the city has been influenced by all and in turn has absorbed them to weave itself into a tapestry of a rich and diverse society.
This diversity is its essence and is what makes Karachi a truly cosmopolitan city. The metropolis remembers all who came to its shores either to own it or to explore it. In turn, every one of them has contributed to making Karachi the dynamic city it is today.
The American architect, Richard Neutra, too, has left his impression on the city’s landscape. His contribution is not just a building housing until recently the US Consulate. It represents the transition of world architecture from the traditional to the modern. Neutra’s experience and thinking is important to understanding the significance of the building.
He was born in Vienna in 1892 and studied architecture at the Technical University of Vienna under Adolf Loos, who was a dominating influence on modernism in architecture. Neutra’s architecture built on Vienna’s Fin de Siècle where from social disintegration so much of modern art and thought was born. His evolution as an architect was also greatly influenced by another great Austrian architect, Otto Wagner.
At the turn of the century Vienna produced some remarkable personalities in the fields of literature, poetry, philosophy as well as in art and architecture. The city became the centre of enlightened thinking and progressive movements in arts and literature. In such an environment, architects re-established the fundamentals of building. Neutra experienced the Viennese Secession movement through Otto Wagner. That moved him away from the traditional norms of designing of the 19th century Europe.
The phrase, ‘to every age its art and to art its freedom’ became the essence of Viennese Secession. This movement also influenced the architecture of Neutra and formed the basis of his modernist design philosophy.
This background is important for his building in Karachi. The building was constructed in a new capital of a new country at a time of great hope and belief in the future. Effervescence and expectation marked life in Karachi at the time. Neutra’s architecture too evolved and developed from the many historical and cultural interactions of the early and middle 20th century. Like Karachi of the 1950s, Neutra too explored new territory in architectural ideas. And again like Karachi, his progressive ideas were a result of culmination of diverse dynamics.
Neutra was also fascinated by the simple geometry of Japanese architecture. He marvelled at the spontaneity with which Japanese gardens and interiors merged into a single form. Moving to California, Neutra’s belief in ‘to every age its art and to art its freedom’ took concrete roots.
Freedom of thought and expression are the hallmarks of vibrant societies. Karachi with its modernising, diverse population is a dynamic city and an appropriate venue to host him. In the US, he worked with the eminent Frank Lloyd Wright briefly but soon moved on. Rudolph Schindler was the pioneer of innovative, simple architecture based on pure geometric forms. Neutra moved in Schindler’s communal living facility, known as the Schindler’s Kings Road House which is a masterpiece of Modernism. His admiration for Japanese aesthetics finally became the signature of his architecture.
His philosophy of design was also influenced by Wilhelm Wundt, which convinced Neutra that the environment must conform to the senses and that architecture should depend on how humans behave. Neutra’s hypothesis was that humans need to orient themselves to their surroundings, and for that humans need all their senses. This hypothesis produced the most defining influence on his architecture. Neutra believed that nature was part of us, and so nature should live with us.
In the 1950s, Neutra brought his philosophy and experience to the city of Karachi, when he was commissioned to design the American Embassy. He thus gave a part of himself to the city. His building brought a little of Vienna, a little of the Viennese Secession movement, a little of the avant-garde California, the philosophy of Wundt and the uniqueness of Japanese aesthetics and above all a touch of Neutra himself to what for him may have been a faraway city on the shores of the Arabian Sea.
This building was perhaps not the first modernist architecture in the city, but Neutra brought his definition of modernism to Karachi. The American Consulate has moved to new premises. This landmark can now be used for the citizens of the city. It is possible to put it to use as a library, a museum of architecture or of modern art, or a centre for study of Pakistan-United States relations.
It is now for the citizens of Karachi to work together so that it not only serves a meaningful purpose, but also becomes a symbol of people-to-people cooperation between the US and Pakistan. I hope that the building would soon be opened to the public to experience and enjoy the work of a pathbreaking architect.