from spaces to places: lahore disassembles the idea of a “western” and “modern” city
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Excerpt from my paper "From Space to Places: Lahore disassembles the idea of a 'Western' and 'Modern' City: Lahore is a fine example where hot spaces molded into places make up the core layers of the city. In other words, Lahore contradicts the Western city and Modern city. Lahore surpasses the restrictions that these definitions offer and thus, it not a modern city. First, Lahore is designed physically on the model of zoning through intentional and unintentional placemaking. Second, these spaces become places through cultural, social, spatial, and psychological associations. These places then are regulated as zones of housing, industry, and commerce, or these places remain unregulated and occupied but mix those categories of development in one zone. Glover makes no mistake when he describes that a city like Lahore should not have to beg for attention, but when given attention Lahore “requires attending to questions of difference and similarity, of what is culturally specific and what is broadly shared”. For these reasons, I asked myself and colleague, Zainab Cheema, a former resident of Lahore, Pakistan, what makes Lahore a unique city? With this question in mind, I began by exploring blogs such Lahore Nama, blogged with current residing residents of Lahore, surfed websites like Flickr that carry “modern” photographs of the city, and lastly read articles written by urban planning and zoning consulting firms on Western cities. In doing so, my aim was to see if there is a legitimate claim to the term “modern” in order to describe Lahore. Can one call Lahore a modern city? If not, what do we call a city like Lahore? Hence, in the following paragraphs I will define what is zoning, placemaking, and by the end of this paper, propose what type of city Lahore presents if not a Western and Modern city. To read more from this paper, email art historian, Madelyne Oliver, at: [email protected]TRANSCRIPT
Madelyne Oliver
Cities in India 198
Associate Professor Alka Patel, UCI
Associate Professor Robert Brown, UCLA
From Spaces to Places: Lahore disassembles the idea of a “Western” and “Modern” city
Western Cities: New Orleans and Baltimore
The Organic city: Lahore
Dimensions Typical land use elements Typical associational/psychosocial elements
Physiological needs
Roads, Stores, food production and distribution facilities, waste management facilities, energy generating facilities, auto-oriented uses, transportation-related facilities, hospitals
Emergency servicesJob opportunitiesEquitable distribution of public services and publicly available resourcesEquitable access from residence to elements that meet all four human needs dimensions
Relational needs
Plazas/public squares, bars, residential enclaves, business districts, places of worship, community centers, theaters, historic and cultural sites
Social clubsCivic organizationsArts associationsFestivalsCommunity rituals
Self-actualization needs
Schools, museums, galleries, passive recreation, business incubators
CompetitionsOpenness to diversityFair opportunities to engage in governanceOpenness to diversity and change
Environmental needs
Parks, open space, streetscaping,
ConservanciesNeighborhood associations
Four dimensions of human needs that transform a ‘space’ into a ‘place’
--Leonardo Vazquez, AICP/PP
The Food Streets:Gawalmandi Food Street
The Mall Food Street at night
Aerial view of The Mall Food Street
The Parks/Gardens:
Model Town Park
Playing cricket and Minar-i-Pakistan at Iqbal Park
The Bazaars:
Moti Bazaar with Wazir Khan Mosque in the backgroundPhoto courtesy of ©Noor Mohammad Khan
Landa Bazaar, Photo courtesy of ©Zarin Shoaib
Cantonment (British Military engineered zone):
Map of Lahore in 1927 of the Cantonment
Suburbia: Gulberg