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Islamabad: The Struggle For Pakistan's Identity: Eman Siddiqui
Islamabad: The Struggle For Pakistan's Identity: Eman Siddiqui
Eman Siddiqui
ABSTRACT
"The capital of a country is the focus and
the center of the people's ambitions and
desires, and it is wrong to put them in an
existing city," Pakistan's President
General Ayub Khan declared the need for
a new capital for a young Pakistan in
1958. General Ayub's desire required
bringing about greater national unity by
rejecting a cultural baggage of the past for
a new national identity. This premise
disqualified the cities of Karachi, a British
colonial legacy, and Lahore, a link to the
Indian past, for becoming the capital of
Pakistan. And so, planned between 1959
and 1963, arose Islamabad. Pakistan
envisioned that the new capital would
assist in bringing East and West Pakistan
together by becoming a symbol of
national pride. Thus, the struggle for
national identity as symbolized in the
creation of Islamabad became closely tied
to the Pakistani national struggle itself inherent in both these struggles was a
desire to start anew and fresh and the
longing to claim what was uniquely its
own. This led to an attempt to unfold a
distinctively national style of architecture
and urbanism which had two
undercurrents: a drive to achieve
modernity and progress as defined by the
West; and the zeal for Islam as it was the
driving force behind the creation of this
157
1840
1860
1880
1900
1920
1940
19(0
1980
2000
2020
158
159
160
161
to
to
A U
e j
t h e
t h e
r h e t o r i c
n a t i o n - s t a t e
i n
i t s
g r i d
[V
o f
t h e
n a t i o n a l
i t s
8 :
I s l a m a b a d ,
t h e
v i t a l i z i n g
o f
h a s
] . M
o f
o m n i s c i e n t
i d e n t i t y
" [
I s l a m a b a d ,
w h i t e
c i t y
..
i s
t h e
t h e
, ^
t h e
s i t e ,
t h e
"
"
i s
t o
I n
u r g e
t o
o f
i t s
w i t h
t a k e n
a s
wm
r e l i g i o u s
o r i g i n a l
p a k i s t a n i
t o
s t r u g g l e
t h e
t h e
p e o p l e
p a k i s t a n i
p r o g r e s s ;
t h a t
t h e
1 4 7 ] .
c r e a t i o n
V a l e 2 0 0 8 :
o f
t h e
s t y l e s ,
t h e
I s l a m i c
o r i g i n s
o f
a r c h i t e c t u r e
r o o t s :
s o u r c e
t h e
e c t o r
l i k e
t h e
i n
I s l a m
t h e
o f
c o l o n i a l
I s l a m i c
i d e o l o g i c a l
r e f l e c t s
f u n d a m e n t a l i s m ,
i t s e l f
t o
n a r r a t i v e
o s t e n s i b l y
s i g n
c h o i c e
a r c h i t e c t u r a l
W e s t e r n i z a t i o n ,
i t s
t h e
^t^
o f
p a k i s t a n
t o
e x e c u t e
1 4
I s l a m a b a d .
s t r u g g l e
c o n c e i v e
l a y o u t ;
20
a l e
c h o i c e
t o
r e f e r e n c e s
a t t a c h e d
t h e
r e f e r e n c e
o f
o f
p a k i s t a n
p u r e
n o r t h .
..
rrr^A^
162
163
164
165
166
167
(Sour9e: www.urbanpk.9om)
(Sour9e: Wikipedia)
Conclusion
169
170
REFERENCES
Doxiadis, C.A. "Islamabad: The Creation of
a New Capital". Town Planning
Review. 36.1 (1965): 1-28. Print.
Harding, Andrew. Access to Environmental
Justice: A Comparative Study. Volume
11. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2007.
Print.
Malik, Ayyub. "Post-Colonial Capitals of
South Asia: A Critical Analysis of
Chandigarh, Dhaka and
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