It would be fair to suggest that there is something for everybody on the site. The first important link is to do with human settlements with reference to land-use, transport, security and demography. The subject of architecture contains, among other things, the discipline’s education and its finer points. Environment and ecology, both with respect to rural and urban issues, have been given a separate space, highlighting their importance. Then information on the architect’s work on the Orangi Pilot Project and Urban Resource Centre and his pivotal role in the development of both schemes are there as well.
Pictorially, one of its special features is the images gallery where the visitors can look at some of the most nostalgia-inducing pictures of pre-independence buildings at a number of places such as Gilgit, Hunza and Tharparkar. Some of them had stone-made structures, some had mud houses and some were built with material that is not used for constructional purposes these days.
A special link on Karachi has some striking black and white images of old city precincts, particularly of buildings on M.A. Jinnah Road (formerly Bunder Road). It was in 1996 that Mr Hasan began and supervised the historic thoroughfare’s photographic documentation. It warms the heart to see Moriswala Building (1915) and Talpur Building (1895) in their original form and shape.
Providing a glimpse into the architect’s somewhat personal outlook on life, the website also comprises his political writings and poetry. One of his poems titled ‘Poetry and Development’ draws an insightful parallel between the two ostensibly diametrically opposed subjects in the following lines at the end of the poem:
“Wisdom, the sages say, makes complexity simple Yet simplicity is not accepted by the merchants of knowledge for it has no market. Because of this perpetual conflict with myself I seek relief in writing poetry. And poetry is more honest if not more meaningful than my work. What a painful contradiction!”