MIT Libraries homeMIT Libraries logoDSpace@MIT

MIT
View Item 
  • DSpace@MIT Home
  • MIT Libraries
  • MIT Theses
  • Theses - Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning
  • Urban Studies and Planning - Master's degree
  • View Item
  • DSpace@MIT Home
  • MIT Libraries
  • MIT Theses
  • Theses - Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning
  • Urban Studies and Planning - Master's degree
  • View Item
JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

The people in the city of the nation : re-viewing Islamabad's fifth function

Author(s)
Mohr, Robert Allen
Thumbnail
DownloadFull printable version (44.35Mb)
Alternative title
Re-viewing Islamabad's fifth function
Other Contributors
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Architecture.
Advisor
Julian Beinart.
Terms of use
M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission. http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582
Metadata
Show full item record
Abstract
This thesis is about Islamabad's center. Islamabad is a city built from scratch. It was the "dream" of Ayub Khan-Pakistan's gregarious and globe-trotting general-cum-president-and the product of its chief master planner, Constantinos Doxiadis-the gregarious and globe-trotting architect-cum-global development expert. Endowed with a propensity for large-scale planning, both operated with a hubris-laden confidence in developing rational solutions to urban and national dilemmas, technocratic strategies employed as a means to realize grand visions. In this way, Islamabad was conceived by both as part of something much larger-Ayub's symbol of a freshly unified nation, steeped in nationalist fervor and draped with the dreams of progress, development and national unity, and Doxiadis's far-reaching vision of "Ecumenopolis", a planetary-scale entity of the far-distant future. Rationality and dreams form the structural and symbolic basis upon which Islamabad and its core were conceived and constructed; yet its envelopment in the dialectic of rationality and dreams, of practice and theory, has prevented Islamabad from developing its own cohesion independent of these larger visions. Functionally deficient and overly symbolic, what exists in Islamabad's central area today is not realized dreams but what emerged in between them. This thesis uncovers the story of how Islamabad's central axis and its terminus-the major buildings of Pakistan's Capital Complex-came to be what they are today.
 
(cont.) This thesis is not solely concerned with the forensic or analytical, however. Nor does it look at Islamabad in a vacuum. Rather, I am interested in Islamabad as the contemporary capital of the nation-state of Pakistan-a state where the dream of an "Islamic Democracy" is still being sought after. It is the intention of this thesis to re-consider the physical manifestation of the national center of power and its environs and re-frame its monuments in a more complex light, acknowledging that the very question of the Pakistani "public" is entangled in that space.
 
Description
Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning; and, (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 2009.
 
This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.
 
Includes bibliographical references (p. 115-119).
 
Date issued
2009
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/49870
Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning.; Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Architecture.
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Keywords
Urban Studies and Planning., Architecture.

Collections
  • Architecture - Master's degree
  • Architecture - Master's degree
  • Urban Studies and Planning - Master's degree
  • Urban Studies and Planning - Master's degree

Browse

All of DSpaceCommunities & CollectionsBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsThis CollectionBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjects

My Account

Login

Statistics

OA StatisticsStatistics by CountryStatistics by Department
MIT Libraries homeMIT Libraries logo

Find us on

Twitter Facebook Instagram YouTube RSS

MIT Libraries navigation

SearchHours & locationsBorrow & requestResearch supportAbout us
PrivacyPermissionsAccessibility
MIT
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Content created by the MIT Libraries, CC BY-NC unless otherwise noted. Notify us about copyright concerns.