Paper Presented: The Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture International Conference, May 23-27, 1998, Rio de Janeiro, BRAZIL

By: Samia Rab, Ph.D.

This paper examines some significant changes in the post-World War II urban planning policies, as they relate to the management of architectural heritage of the Walled City of Lahore, in Pakistan. The Lahore Development Authority (LDA), with aid from international donor agencies, initiated the "redevelopment," "upgrading," and "conservation" policies during the critical phases in the city's urban development. These different attempts at providing a rapidly expanding metropolis with a regularized framework of growth reveal an important "modernist" assumption that planning policies can predict the future shape and quality of a human settlement.

In the 1950s, the LDA developed the urban redevelopment plan, called the Master Plan, for the metropolitan area of Lahore. The Master Plan encouraged replacement of dilapidated districts in Lahore's historic core, that is, its Walled City. The most critical large-scale urban interventions were the Shahalami, Azam and Pakistan cloth markets. They resulted in a fatal expansion of the modern central business district into the Walled City, as the new wholesale and storage activities required a major vehicular access. In the 1980s, as an alternative to the urban redevelopment plan, the LDA initiated the Lahore Urban Development and Transportation Study (LUDTS), which included the Walled City Upgrading Study (WCUS) and the Conservation Plan for the Walled City of Lahore. The upgrading studies presented the Walled City as part of the metropolis at large. The initial "pilot project" was among the first ever undertaken by the World Bank with local authorities and private consultants for inner city redevelopment. This paper suggests that the LUDTS Report represent a radical planning change in dealing with the urban environment that became increasingly unpredictable. The fundamental premise for strategies identified in the LUDTS report tend to propagate the metropolitan region, including the Walled City, as a planning unit.

Although the Conservation Plan regarded the walled city as a "city within a city," it proposes the integration of the city's older and modern development. This paper concludes that one of the most important issues in dealing with a city like Lahore is that of an interface; an intermediary zones where the activities of two distinct zones meet and complement, rather than confront, each other. The edges of the Walled City have been overlooked in both the Walled City Upgrading Study and the Conservation Plan. Perhaps this is because the professionals and/or the decision-makers in the city authority are conditioned to think that the center of the city is its most important place. They continually seek ways to integrate the old and historic areas with the new parts of the city, rather than attempting to retain the unique qualities of distinct areas within the city. Retaining the unique qualities of each settlement can ensure a effective management of architectural heritage that supports both the quality of life for the inhabitants as well as for the ensuing tourism industry.