IDE224 History and Theory of Interior Design: Regional Issues Spring 2013 Professor Migul Jaime American University of Sharjah
Roads
Case Study of the Evolution of Domestic Interior Spaces in Pakistan Hafsa Tameez 43625
Abstract The history of Pakistan’s residents has been a long one, spanning eons of constancy and in more recent decades the tumult of change. In this storm of uncertainty and exploration, the family home serves as a sanctuary, a window of seeming normalcy by which to observe the passing of trends.These multigenerational family homes are a cherished inheritance in Pakistani families, standing the tests of time and resolute in clinging to the heritage of their construction and ornamentation. However, presently it has become a trend to rebuild or completely renovate these historical homes in the pursuit of a more modern aesthetic. after generations of loving preservation, it brings to question the apparently sudden interest in modernisation. Was it triggered by changing social climates or did the understanding of interior spaces undergo a renovation of its own? Did a change in living standards warrant the severing of this link to our ancestors and their way of life? This investigation began by narrowing the triggers down to social trends, family circumstances, and economic means and identifying the major contenders in the causes behind the various renovations of my grandparents’ family home. After conducting the research, interviews, and analysis of layout and aesthetic, the extent of the change in social mindset becomes evident, revealing the truth behind the architectural cyclone that has gripped the region.
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Roads... My grandfather, Shaukat Ali Siddiqui, was too young to remember moving to Pakistan during the great India-Pakistan migration; he was only two years old at the time. Though he had no memories of his life in India, he still remembers the fear he felt moving to a new country. All he had been told was that his grandparents had a haveli in Lower Sindh and that they would be staying with them until further arrangements were made. However, Shaukat and his family did not stay in their native Sindh for long before his own grandfather moved the family to Quetta, Balochistan in the pursuit of business opportunities. All that remains of that old haveli is the memory of distinctive creaks and groans and deep, cool shadows. At the same time in Quetta, young Aram Jan grew up listening to her great aunt’s tales of grandeur, magnificent bungalows and havelis, of wars and princes. But most of all, she enjoyed the stories of her aunt’s own house. Around the fire in the bitter depths of snow-swept winters, she listened as her old aunt spun tapestries of colourful halls, and open gardens, and dimly lit passageways hidden from a sun so bright that snow would never fall. She listened to her weave images of hidden quarters in their ancestral haveli decorated with silks and blankets. She would happen to visit the haveli once on a trip to Shikarpur and that image would stay with her for years to come. Aram Jan did not know it then, but fate had written for her memories to become one with Shaukat Ali’s.
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Background As far as matchmaking goes, my grandparents were similar in many ways. Both were oldest among their many siblings and both carried the responsibility of caring not only for their own children but for their siblings’ families as well. Most importantly however, they shared a common heritage of being raised outside their native Sindhi land. That would define them as a form of secondgeneration Sindhis, since their exposure to the Sindhi culture was indirect and passed down through stories around a winter stove. The Sindhis are among the oldest surviving ethnic groups in the world. As caretakers of a heritage that can be traced to the Indus Valley Civilization, ample time allowed further development of the culture and architectural customs. The Sindhi people are very communal and love to celebrate festivals and holidays with everyone, a fact represented in the way my grandparents stand by their families and extended families (Malik, 2006). These cultural features explain the layout of the historical houses, which allow abundant space for merry gatherings.
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The Shikarpur Haveli The root of my ancestry from my grandmother’s side, the Shikarpur home is a classic example of a haveli, a form of housing popular during the Pre-Mughal and Mughal periods (Khan, 1989). Essentially, it is an elaborate bungalow with accommodations for the whole family and guests (Khan, 1989). Although our own ancestral roots were humble, the haveli still incites images of printed drapery and the nostalgia of times gone by. Although accounts are blurred by the aging hand of history, it seems apparent that the solitary squatting structure once stood as the lone sentinel on the grounds, bearing testament of the change of seasons year after year, decade after decade. Recently though, the surrounding grounds were sold, allowing other construction to manifest close by. The new owners of the haveli use it in much the same way as did my ancestors with a few alterations such as electric lighting, a gas kitchen, and an indoor bathroom. The haveli follows the traditional simple rectangular plan with the characteristic attention to combat the hot climate (Khan, 1989). High ceilings, verandas, a covered courtyard, and narrow corridors keep the sun out and minimize heat gain. The absence of a dedicated living room was a common practice since that function was allocated to the courtyard.
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Material and Construction While stories paint the old havelis as magnificent halls in the lap of luxury with painted silks to challenge the kings themselves, reality was a far more humble creature. The materiality is limited to load-bearing masonry walls, timber cut from the property, white sandstone dug from surrounding quarries, and carved wooden screens called jali (Malik, 2006). Although Sindhi architecture was exposed to Mughal ornamentation, it remained modest in its approach (Khan, 1989). Rather than the exotic red sandstone of India, the region provided humble wood and stone as building materials and the inhabitants were not financially capable of indulging in imported splendour. Ornamentation was fulfilled through decoration allocated to surface carvings, a trademark of Sindhi craftsmen (Khan, 1989; Malik, 2006).
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Layout The layout of the haveli paid homage to the local customs of the land. Communities traditionally enforced a notion of privacy that was especially respected in the case of women. This was physically manifested in the conscious way that living quarters were arranged farthest away from the hustle and life of the courtyard at the entrance of the house (Malik, 2006). Studying the rooms themselves also reveals a wealth of how space was perceived. The size of the various chambers echo their use. The bedrooms are large enough to bed the parents and their children, while the kitchen is only big enough to accomodate the one or two people required to maintain it.
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Aesthetic The treatment of light also offers a unique perspective on the lifestyle that once existed in those dim halls. Where natural light brought comfort for civilisations in the West, here it brought the torturous heat. The architecture took outstanding efforts to block the sun as much as possible. The jali screens and wooden shutters become both an expressive element as well as a functional neccessity. They allow enough light for occupants to perform their tasks but combat the outside heat with extreme prejudice. Rooms are open to smaller interior courtyards to provide much needed air ventilation through the jali while wooden shutters maintain the occupant’s privacy from the outside facade (Malik 2006). The aesthetics treatment is focused on surfaces rather than into the construction. The wall and ceiling planes are plain and unadorned, making them stand out in stark contrast to the explosion of applied colour that happens on the floor and the upholstry. Common colours seen in the elaborate flooring and drapery include yellow, red, blue, and maroon; the colours of the iconic ajrak print and the local agricultural landscape suggesting a deep connection between the occupants and the land. The floor seems to be the main recepient of the geometric patterns forged in melted rainbows of bright hues. Perhaps this was simply because it was the most economical or easy to adorn, or perhaps our ancestors saw this transition from colourful floors to plain ceilings as an expression of the fruitfulness of the land and the monotony of the blue sky.
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Arrangement and Furniture The arrangement of the living space is perhaps the biggest tattle-tale when it comes to understanding how life was within a space. Where generations ago the furniture comprised solely of woven rhattan and rush mats, the current arrangment incorporates the mass-produced units such as sofa seaters though the traditional flair for plain wood is still apparent. The woven cot and floor seating are cultural icons of open interaction. The arrangement, however, is an honest attempt at an interpretation of the historical precedent. Though the rooms are large enough for their function, they are still fairly miniscule when compared to what we are graciously used to today. Combined with the narrow, dim hallways, the furniture treatment calls for a more careful treatment. In this case, this treament involves using the walls as an escape route. All the elements are pushed up against the walls to maximise circulation space. Even the cabinetry is carefully concealed in the walls to save room space.
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Legacy The love of decoration is seen in the floor patterns, but the most blatant announcement of talent lies in the elegant carved threshold to the gardens. Where the floors are a swirl of playful expression and the walls stand stonefaced and mute, the carved gateway is nothing short of extraordinary. The sensual carving and its juxtaposition at the garden entrance reveal much about the Sindhi yearning for a paradise just beyond reach. While the haveli is not a competitor for the most extravagant expression of Sindhi culture, it does however reside unrivaled in its significance. Since my great-great-great grandfather was a prominent figure in the history of Shikarpur, it encourages the notion that he was among the founders of the town and the first to settle in the region during a time lost to memory. This would place my ancestors as the trendsetters at the time. Where my current relatives become second-generation Sindhi, my ancestors secured their place as the first generation in the way their family home was treated to be a part of the land itself.
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Beginnings... To Aram Jan, Shaukat’s house lacked none of the splendor of the Shikarpur haveli. Compared to her own humble background, the house was perfect. It was located right in the middle of the city on Pir Abul Khair Road, close to the marketplaces. And it was big. She even had a room all to herself and her husband, not to mention one for her future children, one for guests, one for her father-inlaw, and a large wing for entertaining guests when it was too cold to use the central courtyard. Aram was sixteen when she married Shaukat and moved in with him, and but a year older when she had her first child. Together they undertook the task of caring for their large families.
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The Quetta Home Compared to Shikarpur, Quetta was a completely different story. It was in the mountains, it was more fertile, and it was cold. Very cold. Accordingly, Quetta’s architecture adapted itself to characterize small homes that were easy to warm, with narrow walkways, and overcrowded tiny rooms. At the same time, a conservative-communal culture that was fiercely overprotective of its women called for homes to be very private (Husain, 2006; Malik, 2006). Homes were like the mountain goats curling in on themselves in the desperate battle for heat, only poking a head up meekly to gaze at the mountains that surrounded them. To this setting, my grandfather’s grandfather brought the notion of Sindhi architecture with its proud high ceilings and covered collonades. Bravely he brought his ethnic pride and planted it in the center of the city, like a seed that would soon grow to tempt the local dwellers. In a parallel to Sindhi havelis, the layout of the house placed the private spaces along the farthest boundary from the entrance. Here too, the rooms were large to accommodate the many and frequent guests as well as the growing family of two sons and four daughters.
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Layout and Context A covered veranda bordered the private areas encircling the central courtyard for hosting family meals, or celebrations like Eid or weddings for the entire neighborhood. While rooms were sheltered by the veranda, the local demand for privacy was respected by closing off the entrance façade to the road. Windows allowed the occupants of the rooms to peep out on the happenings in the courtyard. From the attention paid to visually and physically connect the various rooms to the courtyard, t is obvious that it is the soul of the house. Time was invested either sewing in the veranda during the day, or socialising in the courtyard in the evenings. Unlike the Shikarpur furniture, which was unavailable in Quetta, the family surrendered to the local behemoths found in the Quetta marketplace. The heavy carved chairs and sofas were arranged along the walls again in a way that is reminiscent of the Shikarpur ancestry, much like the memory of a dream that clings to the periphery of rememberance. Construction and materials were dictated by the location. Quetta is an earthquake zone making it hard to preserve large or historical structures (Husain, 2006). As such, common materials were hollowed or lightweight mud bricks for walls, and tin decking sheets for roofing. This minimized casualties if the structure should succumb to the earth’s rage during an earthquake.
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Aesthetic Aesthetic treatment is simpler than the ancestral house. The resemblance between the aesthetic mindset is little different than the similarity one finds among siblings.There are no sensual carvings since that skill was not as readily available in these foreign mountains. However, the floor treatment is a colourful pattern that echoes the tiles in Shikarpur. Colours in lighter pastel shades of green, yellow, pink, and blue grace the floor in a curving dance in the veranda and the printed carpets in the bedrooms. Once again, the walls are plain and adorned only with built-in cabinetry in a silent plea to take notice of the colours one walks on. Lighting is given due consideration in this house as well due to the colder climate. Where in the sun-blasted Sindh more windows meant more wind, here more windows signified very uncomfortable winter evenings. To hurdle the problem of natural lighting, an operable clerestory ran the entire perimeter of the house allowing in light and ventilation to the sleeping quarters.
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Continuity within Discontinuity Though the Quetta house is geographical extention of the Shikarpur house, there are some marked differences. Not only is the courtyard open, but rooms are also no longer used for entire families. Rather the guest wing is separated and rooms divvied up between daughters and sons. Nature is still important since the courtyard developed patches of potted paradise and soothing aromas of gardenias thanks to my grandmother’s gift for gardening. The public areas are still hierarchically more important, demonstrated in the way the bathroom is still set apart from the living space, much like one holds a dirty rag at arm’s length. When looking at the surrounding context, similarities to the ancestral house are apparent once more: the building was also a trendsetter of its time. Considering that my grandfather’s house was the fourth to be built in the area, it rules out the possibility of substantial local influence in the design. The house was the first among many in the area to be built with an open courtyard, a trend that is still pursued in the neighborhood.
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Beginning of the End... Six year old Tahira watched with big soulful eyes as the men with their machines and hammers tore down the home she had been born into. Her father had told her that the house would be bigger and better and that she would never notice the difference. He said her room would look the same. She found that funny. As the youngest daughter of Aram and Shaukat, she slept with her sisters since Shaukat’s own father slept in hers. Despite what her parents said, she was still scared. It still felt like a new beginning.
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Renovation Nearly 20 years after it was built, Shaukat called for the house to be torn down. New development had allowed new forms of construction that could allow multistory structures in an earthquake zone. The oldest son’s recent wedding also raised the need for new quarters for his budding family. Furthermore, one daughter staying with the parents needed accommodation for her and her four children. The birth, and later marriage, of a second son also heralded the need for separate quarters. The house needed to grow with the family and technological advancements allowed the option of building upwards. The house would be bigger, and better in the family’s characteristic pursuit of excellence.
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Layout and Construction While much of the layout remained the same on the ground floor, the construction technique and materials were the most prominent newcomers to the game. The lower part of the house remained much the same, like a flower holding on to summer in the onset of winter. My mother’s room did look the same as before, other than a pink paint job. The hierarchical threads between public and private remained intact and the few changes were to accommodate technological advancements into the family life, such as a garage for cars, and a media room to house the revolutionary Pentium 3 PC at the time. One of the most prominent changes along with bringing the bathroom closer to the bedrooms, was to close off the veranda and make it into a dedicated interior living/TV room. This was where the family now spent most of the time either sewing, knitting, doing embroidery, or watching evening shows together.
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Changes and Extentions The integration of technology was like a hesitant swimmer who tests the water before diving in. The media room was awkwardly perched halfway up the stairs and despite the TV, family time was still more important. The second floor was strictly private. Other than the son’s quarters over the bedroom area, the rest of the roof was converted into a private terrace where couples could take a solitary walk after dinner. The arching colonade and the contination of the swirling ocean of colour on the floor points to a fading memory of havelis and Sindhi pride.
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Aesthetic Colours and lighting conditions were unchanged. The second floor was built on top of the clerestory windows. Decoration was kept the same although the drawing room and formal dining room were more lavishly decorated with freestanding industrially produced ornaments. The reconstructed house was just as related to the traditional Sindhi haveli as the precedent model. Once again thanks to a curious pursuit of advancement aided by financial ability, my grandparents’ home was the first to be rebuilt in concrete and steel in the area, ruling out the possibility of social influence. For several years, it towered over the other houses like a protective sentinel until the neighbors followed suit. However, in this case, the guiding hand behind the building project was a combination of family requirements, economic ability, and the introduction of new technology.
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Remnants... I went running through the palace of curing concrete trying to imagine what the house would look like when it would be completed. I would not be around for the big move that would take place in the spring since I lived in West Africa. But the prospect of coming back next summer to a completely new place made me excited. I would miss the old place certainly, we had some great times there, but I was only 10. What I had were childhood memories. Change was a constant part of my life. My mother however, was torn. She had spent her whole life in that house. Her entire family had been born and raised there. She had been married there. My own first hours were spent in that house. And now it was being left behind. The neighborhood had become unsafe in the growing social unrest. When I came back next summer, the old house was but a distant memory lost in the glamour of modernity.
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Evolutionary Advancements The new neighborhood was located in the military housing scheme sector of the city. Contextually, it was an upper class neighborhood distinguished by its modernist style architecture. It offers higher level security and the opportunity to experiment with nontraditional notions of private and public spaces that somehow seems to be available only to the affluent. This most recent reincarnation of the family house was designed by my uncle who was ensnared by the more Western aesthetic. He designed the house to be spacious, bright, and accessible to my aging grandparents. The number of visitors and relatives at this point is considerably less since everyone has either established their own families and livelihoods by now, or are unwilling to face the scrutinizing security of the neighborhood. My family and my other aunts are still regular visitors though and my other aunt still lives in the house with her children. Where the previous reconstruction was geared by better construction techniques, this iteration is also an exploration of modern construction techniques seen in the inclusion of a two-storey window, glass partitions, cantilevered terraces, and a basement. Where in the older house, the guest quarters, dining and drawing rooms were close to the main entrance, in this house, they are located in the basement away from the living quarters. The higher level of privacy and the coolness of the basement suggests that these formal areas are still important but at the same time distinct from daily life. Directly contradictory to the previous notion of privacy, the bedrooms have windows spanning entire wall lengths.
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Two-Faced Principle Contrary to the previous house which had a single designated area where everyone spent time, in this house people gather in one of two areas: the TV lounge or the kitchen. This reevaluates the notion of spending time together as a family. Where in the previous house, potentially messy activities such as sewing were also done in the living room, the sewing station is now crammed into the middle of the kitchen where it blocks the way to the cabinets, seemingly like an unwanted guest. This also introduces an interesting idea of image. In bygone eras, the regional architecture followed a simple “what you see is what you get� principle, but this house falls into the social rut of using a cloak and dagger aesthetic. The part that people see is pretty but unused in a ridiculous attempt to maintain its neat appearance. The functional area is usually more grubby and therefore hidden from view (Khan, 1999).
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Layout Regarding the layout, one notices a major difference; the courtyard is a bygone memory. Instead, it is replaced by a lush garden lined with rose bushes. The central axis becomes the narrow hallway that connects all the rooms. The location of the family rooms remains much the same as before; my grandparents’ and aunt’s room is on the ground floor, while my uncle’s rooms are upstairs.
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The Role of Technology Within this house, the integration of technology is much more welcoming. There is a designated study station for a family computer located on the second floor. The TV room is hooked up to a surround sound audio system in the living room. An interesting, innovative solution is the installation of an electric dumbwaiter/elevator that runs directly from the kitchen to the formal dining area in the basement, providing much needed relief for hosts to transport refreshements to guests in the drawing room. Water pumps also allowed my uncle to pursue a childhood dream of installing a small swimming pool in the basement.
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Colour and Light The aesthetics explore materiality and lighting conditions much more than actual colour. Each room has its own pastel colour scheme accented by traditional brighter hues that are extended into the private bathroom and dressing areas. The overall colour scheme in the public areas, like living room and drawin room, is neutral. The most interesting feature is the lighting solution. Large floor-to-ceiling windows and a pair of skylights allow light in during the day transforming the place with each hour the sun moves. These windows are then shut with heavy drapes at night to maintain privacy.
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Aesthetic Compared to the previous houses, this reincarnation is much more dĂŠcor oriented. Instead of building the decoration into the structure, as in the case with the flooring in the last generation of the house, this version designates areas for ornaments to be displayed. There are some moments where the history of our family raises its fading glory momentarily, such as where the wooden arch graces the entrance to the dining room. Strangely, although in every other way the house differs from its traditional Sindhi architecture regarding construction, structure, layout, and aesthetic, it finds a bond with its Sindhi roots in the garden. In Sindhi architecture, a garden was a much desired earthly representation of heaven and its inclusion connected our family to its background like a last lifeline. In this case, unlike the other constructions of the house, social precedent plays an active role in determining the final outlook of the house along with technology and western influence more than family requirements and economic ability.
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Conclusion My project began with three variables that measured what guided the evolution of my grandparents’ home. These variables were family requirements, economic ability, and social influence. However, as the project advanced, more influences became apparent as others faded into obscurity with each iteration. What was a simple investigation into the understanding of interior space suddenly became a revelation of evolving social standards and the generation gap that has become apparent among families today. In the first few iterations, neither social influence nor economic ability were a determining factor of the final outcome of each reconstruction. Cultural roots and family requirements were important and played a much stronger role with the earlier generations. With that respect, until the final reconstruction of the house in Cantt, there were strong references in the decoration and layout that clung desperately to the traditional Sindhi style. In the final reconstruction however, social influence and aesthetic were more important while family requirements and cultural roots were a minor priority. The question still remains, in all its accusatory betrayal: what enabled the shedding of family history in exchange for modernity? While the overall trend towards modernity is obviously apparent in the most recent house, there are some similarities between even the final iteration and the ancestral home. In all the houses, traditional Sindhi floor seating is maintained in the main living areas. Guest rooms and formal areas are still given a high level of attention, if not in location then in luxury. The tradition of carved surfaces continues although shifted from built elements to furniture items. Sindhi fascination with nature is also prevalent; whether in the form of a garden or as indoor plants in all houses. However, as the trend goes, certain changes are noticed at a more or less consistent pace. Colours become less dominant and are used less and less on every surface. A single tone is applied to every wall surface. Some splashes of colour are used in the carpeting or drapery or bedsheets. The intimate areas give way to revealing glass. The answer lies perhaps in the search for identity through modernity.
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As the construction style becames more modern, it took a turn for veneer decoration. As a victim of constant civil warfare and the biting sting of poverty, Pakistan as a nation searched desperately for a way to mask its disintegration with pride. The escape route materialised by trying to mimic the Western International Style in a bid to appear as though the nation was atually making advancements. International style became a prominent player in the architectural game after the construction of Islamabad in Le Corbusier’s style in the 60’s (Malik, 2006; Khan, 1989). While there are moments where this adoption of style offered advancement such as in the understanding and manipulation of light, the ability to actually use this newfound knowledge is limited. Not only does this result in a complete lack of innovation, but construction becomes characterised by everyone generally doing the same thing but in a manner that tries to outdo the neighbors (Husain, 1999). Perhaps, more than anything, this skewered attempt for advancement can be blamed on two things: education and technology. As technology advanced, it intruded more and more into the house with every generation. The blade that severed my family’s appreciation for their cultural history and traditional background is the misunderstanding that modernity equates technology. Rather than appreciate technology as a means of adopting traditional methods to modern standards, my uncle simply took the Western interpretation of technology and forced it into the latest context, until nothing remained of the previous houses but a ghostly apparition that lingers in the halls of memory. This misunderstanding can further be traced down to the fact that my uncle, like most of his generation, were raised in a Westernized educational system that ruthlessly stomps on our traditional understanding of space. In the end, “Roads” embodies not only the tumultous history of my own family, but also the history of our race, nation, and advancement. Where our Roads began humble, they have led us to where we stand today: A mask that suffocates the purity of where we came from and obscures the telltale signs of where to go from here. While Roads are built by us, they are nevertheless guided by where they began. What now remains is the will to salvage our broken understanding of who we are, so visibly displayed in where we live.
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