Cities in the Passage of Time - Tracing Lahore's Architectural Memory Through the Lens of Depiction

CITIES IN THE PASSAGE OF TIME tracing lahore’s architectural memory through the lenses of depiction

maham neha andaleeb ansari

Master of Architecture AR602 - Dissertation Kent school of architecture Supervisor: Mike Richards Word Count: 8841 23rd March 2018

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Firstly, I’d like to thank Lahore, for providing me with enough inspiration to last me a lifetime; and Venice, for giving me a chance to experience the deep undertones of a city’s impact on one’s perspective. I owe these experiences to my parents, for their love, support and belief in my abilities, and my siblings for challenging me and supporting me. I am especially grateful to my mother and brother for their valuable insights on my research and writing, and my father for his guidance.

I would like to express my gratitude to Mike Richards, my advisor, who guided me with my decisions throughout the Masters programme and helped me with the technicalities of my dissertation. And to Manolo Guerci, for introducing me to Pessoa, and helping me develop a unique outlook with which to approach my research.

I would also like to thank Michael Holms Coats and Lee Jesson, for sharing my interest in the theme of memory, and helping me find a focus.

I would like to extend my appreciation to Wajahat Ali and Afshan Imdad at Aga Khan Cultural Service Pakistan, and Dr. Nadhra Shahbaz Khan and Ayesha Noorani for allowing me to use their time, library and resources. And lastly, to my friends and extended family, for supporting me and being there when I needed them most.

ABSTRACT

This dissertation aims to explore the memories of the city of Lahore, Pakistan, through the eyes of those who experienced it closely. The architectural atmosphere of a city and its effect on the memory of a place can be broken down into various conceptual arguments about a place and the memorialisation of its experience. However, to study the synthesis between Lahore’s architectural atmosphere and the its memories, this dissertation will look at depictions as devices that capture the details of experiences, analysing them through a pair of artistic ‘lenses’ – literary and visual representation. By studying the way the Lahore’s Walled City and its monuments were seen and represented across the world by travellers, writers and artists, the aim of this research is to trace how architectural and atmospheric elements that made Lahore memorable for its observers and how they showcase it in their work.

The research realisation will be the result of looking at examples of cities in represented in the literary works of Calvino and Pessoa, and in the artworks of Piranesi and Canaletto. These will then be used at to look at a range of literature, paintings and sketches set in Lahore’s Walled City, to trace the importance of architectural atmospheres in the city’s experience and portrayal of its image.

CITIES IN THE PASSAGE OF TIME CONTENTS

1.0 Introduction

07

1.1 Methodology

09

1.2 Literature Review – Cities and Memories

10

1.3 Background on Lahore

13

2.0 Lens I – Written Representation

17

2.1 Pessoa’s Lisbon

18

2.2 Calvino’s Venice

20

2.3 The Writers’ Lahore

22

3.0 Lens II – Visual Representation

30

3.1 Piranesi’s Rome

31

3.2 Canaletto’s Venice

33

3.3 The Artists’ Lahore

35

4.0 Conclusion

45

5.0 Bibliography

47

1.0 INTRODUCTION

1.0 INTRODUCTION Memories encapsulate the deepest architectural experiences – they act as reservoirs of the atmospheres and images that form one’s perception of a particular place and time.1 Once portrayed to a larger audience, these memories leave their mark on the image of a city and its built environment. A closer look at these portrayals could reveal a multitude of architectural characteristics that left everlasting impressions on those who experienced a particular place. One of these places was Lahore, Pakistan, whose complex urban web of the Walled City was experienced by many. The preservations of these memories through depictions and accounts showcase the deep strata of Lahore’s historical encounters and their profound impact on those who experienced the city.

To study the synthesis of the city, its architectural atmosphere and its memory, it is important to look into the theories of space and memory, and the concretization of a city’s remembrance using different media.

The architecture of cities and its effect on memory is a multi-faceted subject that can be interpreted as a purely conceptual idea, a collection of architectural spaces in one’s mind to aid recollection, or the memorialization of a particular thing or person. However, a city’s atmosphere has its ‘own realm’, and its depiction is a vessel or ‘memory device’2 that, according to Zumthor, ‘contains the rhythm of footsteps and the silence of sleep’3, providing us with a deeper understanding of a place’s effect on a memory.

The depth of a memorable experience is enhanced by the living elements of the city. People’s activities are just as important in preserving a memory as the built environment, which essentially acts as a ‘stage where the performance of everyday life unfolds’4. This means that we aren’t ‘mere observers of the

Fig 1.1 The Walled City of Lahore as seen from the minaret of the Badshahi Mosque

1 (Zumthor, 1998) 2 (Pallasmaa, 2009) 3 (Zumthor, 1998) 4 (Vandal & Vandal, 2006) 7

INTRODUCTION

Fig 1.2 Aerial photograph of the Badshahi Mosque, Lahore Fort (R) and the dense development of the Walled City (Right; Background) (Sources:J. Zakariya,2013)

spectacle, but a part of it ourselves, onstage with the other participants’5. Travellers who sailed to the East, became a part of the experience and returned with fascinating narratives for their stay-at-home peers6. As Kevin Lynch suggests, ‘a city is a construction in space, but one of vast scale, a thing perceived only in the course of long spans of time’7.

Such exchanges between the East and West played a significant role in the stratification of Lahore’s encounters. The time spent in Lahore rendered the perspective of its memory for visitors and residents alike, filtering into their work and providing a glimpse of the city’s most captivating features. The Indian subcontinent – present day Pakistan, India and Bangladesh – was a part of many such depictions which showcased architectural experiences that had left everlasting impressions on people. Among them were travellers, missionaries, conquerors, artists, writers and even residents; each of whom experienced the eastern world in their own way and communicated them to others through their work. This led to the exchange of ideas and influences and to the memorialization of the architectural atmospheres observed and experienced, creating an ‘image’ of the city in collective memory.

This dissertation deals with the depictions of Lahore’s Walled City and its monuments from the Mughal Dynasty8, the British ‘Raj’9 to recent years. The aim is to analyse through a set of ‘lenses’, literal and visual, the depictions of cities such as Lisbon, Venice and Rome, in the works of Pessoa, Calvino, Piranesi and Canaletto. Works of writers and artists that were influenced by the architectural atmosphere of Lahore would then be studied to identify the city’s influence on an individual, and how this influence is relayed to others.

5 (Lynch, 1960) 6 (Howard, 2000) 7 (Lynch, 1960) 8 ‘Mughal Dynasty’ – Muslim Rule over the Indian subcontinent (1400s-1700s) 9 ‘Raj’ – Urdu word; literally translates to ‘Rule’. Used to refer to the period of British colonial era (1700s-1947) 8

INTRODUCTION

1.1 METHODOLOGY

This dissertation aims to use a set of thematic ‘lenses’ to look at the depiction of the memories of Lahore.

The ‘lenses’ deal with the depiction of architectural atmospheres according to the media used, looking at specific examples of written and painted representations that show the city from the perspective of the author or artist.

To identify the influences of spaces and places experienced in Lahore on written work, the concept of architecture in literature and the works of Pessoa and Calvino who have written about the enchanting experience of cities like Lisbon and Venice are studied. This is followed with an analysis of how memorable experiences of Lahore’s Walled City and monuments inspired written accounts, or appear as a background in the narration of fiction. Similarly, selected artworks and drawings by Piranesi and Canaletto of Rome and Venice are analysed after a brief study of the typology of depiction, followed by an analysis of portrayals of Lahore’s architectural atmosphere and its memories.

9

INTRODUCTION

1.2 LITERATURE REVIEW BACKGROUND ON THE DIFFERENT ASPECTS OF MEMORY AND CITIES

A glance at general theories of architectural memory and of cities in the works of writers and artists makes it easier for us to identify the various aspects of memory and architecture. They help to understand the underlying complexities of architectural atmospheres in depictions, which can be used to analyse the portrayals of Lahore and its representation in different media.

Thinking Architecture gives us an insight on Peter Zumthor’s views on the relationship between memory and architecture. He mentions that ‘Memories are the reservoirs of architectural atmospheres and images’10 and believes the depth of experience comes with the time spent in a place, agreeing with Heidegger11 that, ‘the relationship of a man and a place is based on his dwelling in it’12. In terms of architectural representation in a person’s work, Thinking Architecture comments that our understandings of architecture are rooted in the past and therefore, respect the process of remembering. The roots of architectural understanding lie ‘in our architectural experiences in our room, house, street, village, town or landscape. We experience them all early on and subsequently compare them with spaces we observe later’13. The book suggests that the presence of architecture plays a key role in making a city memorable and, with time a place can no longer be imagined without certain buildings, they grow into being a part of the urban fabric. Zumthor stresses that the roots of our experiences ‘lie in our biography and we have to learn to work with that biography’.

Alternatively, Kevin Lynch’s studies of the relationship between memories and cities in Images of a City are both thematic and physical. They add to Zumthor’s and Heidegger’s statements saying that even the mental picture of an ordinary place could be imbued with meaning through ‘long familiarity’. The study suggests that for a place to have a memorable impact, it has to be ‘legible and capable of forming a mental image about’14. According to Lynch, while a city’s outlines may remain the same; its detail is everchanging, which produces a sharp image of the physical setting and provides collective memories used to communicate with others. The city is a powerful symbol of a society that, if aesthetically well arranged, can suggest particular associations which the observer selects, organises and gives meaning to. Lynch claims that this enhances the depth and intensity of experience, for instance, a routine event would be given a new meaning if taken place in a more vibrant background.

The observer’s mental image of the architectural atmosphere is a product of a profound memory, and Images of a City states that ‘a strong mental image of an experience gives its possessor a sense of sensitivity that they can use to establish a relationship with the city’15. These mental images are the outcome of an exchange between the observer and his environment and, according to Lynch, may be analysed in three 10 (Zumthor, 1998) 11 Martin Heidegger – German Philosopher of ‘hermeneutics’ (the theory of interpretation of scriptures and texts) 12 (Zumthor, 1998) 13 Ibid.

14 (Lynch, 1960) 15 (Lynch, 1960) 10

INTRODUCTION

ways: the identification of an object, the spatial pattern and the meaning attached to the time or place.

The perceived image emphasizes what is seen and experienced, forming a view that may be different for each observer, and subsequently filter into their work.

Ellen Eve Frank’s Literary Architecture provides a more focused view on the depiction of cities and memories.16 To study architecture in the depicted form, Frank’s suggests taking two steps: firstly, notice internal architectural structures within the literary work - these could be ‘cathedrals which symbolize character, temples which organize memory, or dwelling-houses which are settings for action’17. The second step is to notice similar places in the real, outdoor world. We can view the second step as correspondences between the internal and external structures. However, Frank, like Pallasmaa, claims that the architecture of the city is like a ‘memory device’18, so ‘internal’ structures could be perceived as those of ‘consciousness, conventions of perception, systems of belief, as well as of thought and feeling’19; while ‘external’ could be understood as artwork in addition to physical architecture around us.

In her book Venice and the East, Deborah Howard explores the architectural influence of Islamic cities on Venice through the travelling and trading. She describes the role of memories in this exchange saying, ‘the layers of communal memory became embedded like a geographical strata containing fossilized images of past historical events imprinted on the stones of the city’20. Howard explains that images of buildings could not be transmitted across the seas before the age of printing, thus the Venetians used buildings as securities in trade. This resulted in representations of the city’s architecture in meticulous descriptions, a technique ‘rooted deeply in Eastern culture’21 – e.g. Al-Maqrizi’s account of Cairo22. Howard suggests that architectural ideas from the East cities were infused into Venice’s architectural language, drawing on reminiscences, and provided travellers’ with a strong mental image that filtered into their narratives upon return. These filled the imaginations of stay-at-home Venetians and formed a particular image of other cities. ‘Like the display of spoils pillaged from a foreign city, the remembered appearance of another place could be revealed through the process of distillation, imbuing the ‘stolen memories’ with their new meaning’23.

Similarly, in a selection of accounts of places visited by various travellers and writers, in The Writer Abroad, Lucinda Hawksley explains the importance of the role of the memories of cities in their depictions. Like Howard, Hawksley says that even a trip to another side of the same continent was considered a oncein-a-lifetime opportunity before the introduction of modern technology, and therefore, these ‘arduous journeys were commemorated by preserving memories of places through journals and images’24.

Therefore, literal and visual depictions could be seen as memory devices that take an observer on a journey through time to places of the past. They reveal stories of cities experienced by writers and artists that ‘shaped not only their own world, but also played a vital role in shaping the vision and world perceptions of their observers/readers’25.

16 (Frank, 1983) 17 (Frank, 1983) 18 (Pallasmaa, 2009) 19 (Frank, 1983) 20 (Howard, 2000) 21 Ibid.

22 Al Maqrizi – Egyptian historian famous for his Arabic publications describing the history and topography of Egypt (1854) 23 (Howard, 2000) 24 (Hawksley, 2017) 25 (Hawksley, 2017) 11

INTRODUCTION

Fig 1.3 View of the roofscape of Walled City with the Badshahi Mosque (R) Lahore Fort Gate (C)

Fig 1.4 (L) Walled City, Kashmiri Bazaar, with the minaret of the Wazir Khan Mosque (Source: Flickr Liaqat Ali); (R) Walled City, Dehli Gate Bazaar

12

INTRODUCTION

1.3 LAHORE BACKGROUND ON LAHORE’S URBAN FABRIC

To study the impact of Lahore on those who experienced it, it is important to understand its complex urban web and historical context. Lahore was first mentioned in the Ptolemaic maps26 of ‘Geographia’27 as ‘Lobokola’ situated between the rivers Indus and Patna.28 Excavations carried out in the ‘Walled City’ of Lahore, linked the city’s foundations to the 6th century AD29, making Lahore a contemporary of ancient settlements such as Damascus, Cairo and Venice. However, Lahore’s encounters with various architectural influences dates back to the 11th century AD establishment of the Ghaznavid Dynasty30, when Malik Ayaz31 laid out the city lines, setting up the mould in which the city grew32. This began a dialogue between Lahore and its architectural atmosphere that dictated the city’s growth and left everlasting impressions its observers.

Majority of the existing architectural glory is attributed to the Mughals who memorialised their legacy through monumental architecture to symbolize the splendour of their empire. Evidence of this is seen through written extracts from the courts’ scribes, miniature paintings or depictions of events. Over the course of 300 years, the Mughals transformed Lahore into a major trading centre and established the iconic Walled City and Fort. ‘The Walled City is the historical core of Lahore - its labyrinthine streets, clan quarters, congregational squares, bustling bazaars, mosques, imposing walls, gates and ramparts are living in testimony to its Islamic heritage’.33

Fig 1.5 Section of a Mughal Era Chart c.1600s showing Lahore’s Walled City and its surroundings enroute Qandahar (Source: PEPAC.1993)

26 Ptolemaic Maps – 3rd century maps by Ptolemy with improved projections; later declared inaccurate due to incorrect latitudinal calculations.

27 Ptolemy – Greek philosopher; most famous for ‘Geographia’, a compilation of geographical coordinates of lands known to the Roman Empire during the time 28 (Qureshi, 1989) 29 (PEPAC, 1993) 30 (Latif, 1892) and (Qureshi, 1989) 31 Malik Ayaz – Slave of Mahmood Ghaznavi, founder of the Ghaznavid Dynasty (11th-12th century AD) 32 (Vandal & Vandal, 2006) 33 (Qadeer, 1983) 13

INTRODUCTION

Lahore acted as a capital of the Mughal Emperor Akbar (1584-1598), and according to Abu’l Fazl, ‘became the resort of people of all nations and an extensive centre of commerce’34. The city’s social order was based on territorial communal principles –divided into districts, each inhabited by a tribe or union, under the supervision of a noble family. In Lahore’s interwoven network of streets, ‘the neighbourhoods were villages of a kind where rich and poor were knit together through customary obligations and privileges’35.

The city had twenty-one quarters the names of which are indicative of their origin36 and thirteen main gates. As Samuel Noe describes it ‘Shops and businesses are family owned; continuous traffic between houses and shops leads to frequent face-to-face interactions building up mutual trust leading to a strengthened community’37.

The Colonial period brought into view a new arrangement of the political, social and economic forces that resulted in changes to Lahore’s built environment. The city had already trickled far beyond the walls, but was still pretty much set within its ancient mould – a ‘honeycomb-like’ plan with a network of narrow streets, opening up occasionally into a square, usually a courtyard of a mosque, or ‘bazaar’. A new boulevard sentimentally named ‘The Mall’ with its central square as ‘Charing Cross’, was introduced along which we see the merging of the memories of the West into the existing eastern context. Architecture along the Mall is grand display of the new building typologies previously merged into the affairs of the mosques. According to Simon Winchester these managed to achieve ‘a remarkably harmonious balance with the existing medieval city, looming always in the background’38.

Lahore’s complex urban web, therefore, is the result of its encounters with each different regime, which gradually became a platform where its unique dynamics39 were deeply experienced by many and recorded in different media. The diverse range of architectural styles is clearly visible in the urban web; and this ‘harmonious balance’ provided Rudyard Kipling with a perfect set for one of his most successful works, Kim.40 During this time, the Indian subcontinent was experienced by many who wrote about their experiences in the citadel of Lahore extensively41 and preserved their impressions of Lahore in their artwork to take home as memorabilia.

Fig 1.6 (L) Map of Lahore showing the Walled City; (R) showing the locations of major monuments discussed in this research (Source AKCSP.2016)

34 (Latif, 1892) – excerpt from the translations of Ain-e-Akbari by Abu’l Fazl 35 (Qadeer, 1983) 36 (Khan, 2016) 37 (Noe, 1980) 38 (Winchester & Morris, 1983) 39 (Vandal & Vandal, 2006) 40 (Kaplan, 1989) 41 (Vogel, 1920) 14

INTRODUCTION

Fig 1.7 (a) Map of the Walled City showing the City Wall and Gates (Source PEPAC.1993)

Fig 1.7 (b) Map showing the topography/contours of the Walled City (Source PEPAC.1993)

Fig 1.7 (c) Map of spaces of architectural value in the Walled City (Source PEPAC.1993)

15

2.0 LENS I - WRITTEN DEPICTION

2.0 LENS I - WRITTEN DEPICTION Images or recollections of the city into ‘distil’ into writers’ work as a backdrop to their stories, providing us with a ‘never-ending commentary on the city, people and institutions, the real and fictive’42. Events held against the vibrant background of a city enhance the depth of human experience and could be given a new meaning43. These architectural experiences form deep strata of memories which then go through a ‘process of distillation’44, using media such as literature, infusing the memory of a place with new meanings.

If looked at as a device, architecture may symbolize a memory and ‘facilitate recall of the past, like literature’45. It becomes an idea that is expressed by architects rather than philosophers – ‘It may embody the past; it may record the past in engravings; it may stimulate recall of the past by character.’46 This ‘device’ is then used by writers, who hold up a ‘magic mirror’47 that reflects the city and its atmosphere in ‘images’ that are more legible than they are to a person using their own unaided sight on the street48.

Examples of these are seen throughout literary history, in excerpts from travellers to writers who describe or base their narratives on memorable cities and spaces. In the world of Western literature, two names stand out when looking at writers using their architectural experiences in their written narratives – Fernando Pessoa and Italo Calvino.

42 (Westwood & Williams, 1997) 43 (Lynch, 1960) 44 (Howard, 2000) 45 (Frank, 1983) 46 Ibid.

47 (Westwood & Williams, 1997) 48 Ibid 17

LENS I - WRITTEN DEPICTION

2.1 PESSOA’S LISBON

Fernando Pessoa, a Portuguese poet who wrote under various heteronyms49, is closely associated with Lisbon as he rarely left his beloved hometown in his adulthood. He even wrote a ‘Guidebook to Lisbon’ however, Walker suggests, ‘Pessoa reveals little of his shape-shifting imagination… We barely glimpse the man who spent his life as a kind of dual resident of both Lisbon and his own refractory city of dreams’50.

Pessoa also mentions Lisbon his poem, ‘Lisbon Revisited’51:

However, Lisbon’s architectural atmosphere is more directly described in ‘The Book of Disquiet’ where we see snippets of the city woven into the biographical narrative. “Pessoa felt himself a permanent outsider looking in on life in Lisbon, and much of these reflections were found on scraps of paper in an old trunk in his room”52, which make his perspective unique.

To experience Lisbon through Pessoa’s perspective, the narrator compares himself to city’s streets, saying ‘Walking on these streets till night falls, my life feels to me like the life they have – By day full of meaningless activity; by night they’re full of a meaningless lack of it’53. This gives an insight to how deeply the author must have experienced architectural atmosphere. Furthermore, Pessoa describes, “solitary squares that are dotted amongst the quiet streets and are themselves just as quiet and free of traffic. They are things that wait, clearings amidst distant tumults. They are remnants of village life surviving in the heart of the city”54. Squares and narrow streets, usually the heart of communal activity, are portrayed as silent and solitary, providing the reader with a mental image of Lisbon to be a picturesque city, where one can hear the trams echo. The sound of the trams add another layer of meaning to Pessoa’s experience of the city: “How human the metallic peal of the trams! …Oh Lisbon, my home! ”55 Broida observes something nostalgic in how approachable Lisbon is as a city Pessoa’s writing. We get a mental image of the stretch of the Atlantic, the hills and variations of heights in the cityscape; and ‘despite its confusing and cramped streets, endless hills, and shabby buildings, when the wind blows off the Tagus you can smell the ocean’56. Pessoa says, ‘as a transient body and soul in these low-lying streets that lead to the Tagus, I see the luminous heights of the city glowing, like a glory from beyond, with various lights of a sun that has already set’57. There is a subtle enchantment in the atmosphere in the city’s layout that one can feel in Pessoa’s descriptions, which helps us picture the urban web and the impression it left on his spatial memory.

49 (Academy of American Poets, 2017); Heteronym – An imaginary character created by an author to write in a different style 50 (Walker, 2017) 51 (Zenith & Campos, 2017) 52 (Broida, 2015) 53 (Pessoa, 2001) 54 Ibid.

55 Ibid.

56 (Broida, 2015) 57 (Pessoa, 2001) 18

LENS I - WRITTEN DEPICTION

Fig 2. 1 (a) Woodcut of Lisbon, 1598, showing the city as one of the most important trading centres (Source: Res Obscura.2010)

Fig 2. 1 (b) A 16th Century woodcut of Lisbon depicting its urban web (Source: A cidade Branca.2018)

19

LENS I - WRITTEN DEPICTION

2.2 CALVINO’S VENICE

Italian writer Italo Calvino looks at Venice as a ‘paradigm’58 and outlines its majestic spaces and features through his character’s descriptions of imaginary cities to the emperor Kublai Khan. Using a setting as delicate as Venice, Calvino carefully picks elements, as if with tweezers, in order to represent its various architectural atmospheres. 59

The descriptions in Invisible Cities revolve around remembrance and recollections of architectural features.

How we remember a particular space and how we ‘relate to those flashes of connection’60 deeply informs our relationship with the place. At one point, the character of Marco Polo states, ‘I could tell you how many steps make up the streets raising like stairways – the city doesn’t consist of this but of relationships between the measurements of space and the events of its past… As a wave of memories flows in, the city soaks it up like a sponge, and expands’61, suggesting that the architecture imbues meaning into people’s memories.

Marco Polo feels that it is necessary to speak of Venice to distinguish other cities’ qualities. To understand Venice, Calvino suggested that a person had to go through a journey through unfamiliar places. Lynch’s claim that a mental image can be used to establish a relationship with the city can therefore be seen in Marco Polo’s interaction with Venice and of the reader’s interaction with ‘the urban images projected by Polo’62.

In the book, ‘Cities and Signs 2’, Zirma’s features repeat themselves and it is made of redundant objects around which memories develop. The city of Zora in the ‘Cities and Memory 4’, is described to be memorable, each feature of which establishes a bond. However, Marco Polo warns that fond memories of a place could leave one disappointed upon return, as Zora was not the same when he visited, probably because city’s details are ever-changing, as Lynch suggests.

Calvino describes his memorable impressions of Venice in snippets through Marco Polo, who ‘retraced the stages of his journeys, and he came to know the port from which he had set sail, and the familiar places of his youth and the surroundings of his home and a little square of Venice where he gambolled as a child.’63 Unlike Pessoa, Calvino’s depictions are less tangible, allowing the reader to form their own memories of Venice.64

58 (Plant, 2002) 59 (Calvino, 1974) 60 (Yuen, 2015) 61 (Calvino, 1974) 62 (Modena, 2011) 63 Ibid.

64 (Calvino, 1974) 20

LENS I - WRITTEN DEPICTION

Fig 2.2 Venice depicted by cartographer Piri Reis Kitab-i Bahriye, a book of portolan charts from the early 16th century (Source: Islamic Art & Architecture.2012)

21

LENS I - WRITTEN DEPICTION

2.3 THE WRITERS’ LAHORE

Lynch suggests that the city is a powerful symbol65 from which the observer can extract memorable experiences. The depth of these experiences, as Heidegger and Zumthor point out, depends on the amount of time spent in the city66. Memories of time spent in Lahore ‘distilled’ into various forms of literature, which can be categorised as: the memorialization of the city in Mughal court scriptures; accounts of travellers; and the use of its architectural atmosphere as a stage for narrative in fiction.

Lahore was an important capital in the Mughal Empire, and therefore, was developed and extensively documented in the ‘Ain-I-Akbari’, a detailed document of Emperor Akbar’s administration. Written by Akbar’s minister, Abul Fazl, it memorializes Lahore by describing its physical features: ‘In the time of His Majesty the fort has been built of solid bricks and lime, and as, from time to time, the seat of government was establishes here, lofty palaces were built, to which additional beauty was given by luxuriant gardens.

It is the resort of people of all nations from every city, and wonderful works have been made here. In extent and population, it far surpasses the average”67. This memorializes Lahore as it was meant to be remembered – its extravagant architecture a symbol of strength and power of the Mughal Empire for generations to come.

Mughal Lahore’s importance as an imperial capital, trading centre and as a site of continuous great architectural heritage led to a burst of European exploration in the 1600s, which created great curiosity about the Mughal courts and the Eastern lifestyle. Travellers experienced the city and recorded their memories in accounts that would give Europeans access to an ‘image’ of Lahore.

William Finch, who stayed in Lahore between February and August of 161168, devoted most of his account to Lahore and declared it as one of the greatest cities of the East69. He describes Lahore’s streets, surrounded by a solid brick wall that twelve gates and that the ‘buildings are faire and high with a brick and much curiosity of carved windows and doors.’70 Although he only gives a brief description of the citadel, Finch describes the Lahore Fort in great detail, outlining the pathway between the public Audience Hall (Diwan-i-Aam) and the jharoka window that looked over the River, and the painted decoration of the Fort buildings. This shows us that the ‘splendour Mughal’ architecture was meant to convey to outsiders, impacted Finch the most71, taking up a large part of his descriptions of the Mughal capitals:

65 (Lynch, 1960) 66 (Zumthor, 1998) 67 (Fazl, 1873) 68 (Latif, 1892) (Gharipour & Ozlu, 2015) 69 (Gharipour & Ozlu, 2015) 70 (Finch, 1611); (Gharipour & Ozlu, 2015) 71 (Finch, 1611); (Gharipour & Ozlu, 2015) 22

LENS I - WRITTEN DEPICTION

Fig 2.3 Aerial photograph of the Lahore Fort

Fig 2.4 Aerial photograph of the Lahore Fort, showing its layout (Source: Abdullah Sultan, AKCSP.2018)

23

LENS I - WRITTEN DEPICTION

Spanish Monk, Fray Sebastian Manrique wrote in 1641 ‘It is a handsome and well-ordered city, with large gateways and pavilions of various colours. I entered the city, a very difficult undertaking on account of the number of people who filled the street, some on foot, some on camels… jolting one against the other as they went along.’72 Like Pessoa’s writing, we get a glimpse of the urban web through these accounts.

The images of Lahore created in travellers’ accounts rarely give a sense of the city’s architectural atmosphere. Therefore, as Mehreen Razvi suggests in her study of ‘Mughal Lahore in Travellers’ Accounts’, it could be assumed that the impressions of Lahore sent back to Europe ‘were skewed and created a very limited picture of this great cosmopolitan city of the East, since the travellers recorded only what they considered to be of spatial or of architectural importance’73. These personal memories ‘distilled’ into the realm of fact and relayed to the European audience, made up a collective memory of Lahore. However, in reality this collective image was the result of a handful of personal memories.

Lahore had started wearing the look of a colonial city by 1882, with the Mall running through it. This made it, as Robert Kaplan put it, ‘a rich confection of a city, whose great Mogul buildings and street life evoke the deep hues and sensuality of a miniature painting, and was where the teen-aged Kipling74 cut his teeth as a newspaperman. Lahore even provided the setting for some of Kipling's greatest stories’75, the most well-known being Kim. Although, Kipling hardly describes Lahore’s architectural atmosphere directly in Kim apart from the opening scene, he stages it in spaces that are inspired by spaces he experienced physically in the Walled City. Ijaz Batalavi76 traces Kipling’s journeys and memorable experiences in Lahore that ‘provided him with material to write about for the rest of his life’77.

When he returned to India after his schooling, Kipling was returning to his birthplace, and earliest memories. He began writing for the Civil and Military Gazette. This opened up a whole new world of observation and knowledge for Kipling. According to Batalvi, ‘Lahore was a city of destiny (for Kipling), the vibrant life of the walled Mughal city after dark, reminding him of an illustration from the Arabian nights, where the residents helped to create an impression of mysterious lives lived in the shadows of domes and minarets78.

Kingsley Amis points out that Kipling suffered from insomnia79 and often set out on foot to ‘explore the magic and mystery that descended on the city’80 in the night. He would walk to the Wazir Khan Mosque, where he would go up the minaret to cool down – this is from where he was able to observe the city:

72 (Latif, 1892) 73 (Gharipour & Ozlu, 2015) 74 Writer Rudyard Kipling lived and worked in Lahore for 5 years.

75 (Kaplan, 1989) 76 Ijaz Batalvi – Pakistani lawyer and literary critic.

77 (Batalvi, 2005) 78 (Batalvi, 2005) 79 Kingsley Amis; (Batalvi, 2005) 80 (Batalvi, 2005) 24

LENS I - WRITTEN DEPICTION

Fig 2.5 (a) View of the Wazir Khan Mosque and the Walled City from one the minarets.

This gives us an idea of the view Kipling might have observed (Source: Kaleem Ullah.2016)

Fig 2.5 (b) Aerial photograph of the Wazir Khan Mosque and it’s surrounding context (Source: M.Ashar.2017)

25

LENS I - WRITTEN DEPICTION

This shows us the romanticised colonial view of Lahore, portrayed as imbued with magic, the view of a sleeping Walled City from the minaret of the Wazir Khan Mosque. According to Philip Masson, ‘He looked always and everywhere for the material, consciously stored it until he could put it to dramatic use… The craftsman mind was always at work on these fragments, turning them over, polishing and selecting’81. Like the travellers’ accounts of Lahore, Kipling’s depictions were a revelation, even to other Englishmen who had lived in the subcontinent. They added a new dimension to the collective memory of Lahore, as they were a result of deep observation and ‘long familiarity’82.

William Glover, who researched Lahore as a modern colonial city observed that a city is created as aesthetically as it is materially. Like Lynch, Zumthor and Heidegger, he states that these two tangible and intangible features ‘cannot be dissociated from each other, either in scholarly analyses or in the lived experience of the people who inhabit it.’83 Therefore, the residents of Lahore were inspired by their memories of the city differently, nuances of which are inter-woven in their writings.

Allama Iqbal, poet and philosopher, known for inspiring the Pakistan Movement, define Lahore by its height and ‘statuesque splendour’84 that is associated with Lahore’s architectural heritage. The extravagant built structures meant to portray Lahore, as having a certain strength and permanence:

Bapsi Sidhwa, in the City of Sin and Splendour, brings together literature by those who have shared a relationship with Lahore. The texts, like the works of Pessoa and Calvino, are a tribute to memory and to memorable places which reflect the city’s architectural and spatial atmosphere, and add meaning to Lahore’s memories.

‘After all, it is the city in which our memories are lodged’, Sidhwa analyses Lahore’s role in her own work, and feels that ‘at times the magnificent tombs of Lahore, the mosques and gardens, and the colonial edifices built by the British, form only an essential background; it is the people who throng Lahore’s bazaars and streets and inhabit the city’s buildings that occupy centre stage. And therein lay the memories draw upon in my novels’85. Her descriptions use monuments to help us instantly picture the atmosphere:

81 Philip Masson; (Batalvi, 2005) 82 (Lynch, 1960) 83 (Glover, 2008) 84 Originally written in Urdu, published in Bang-e-Dara, Translated by Parizad Sidhwa (Sidhwa, 2005) 85 (Sidhwa, 2005) 26

LENS I - WRITTEN DEPICTION

Like Pessoa’s flâneur observing the streets of Lisbon, Writer Intezar Hussain’s life was ‘spent walking the streets of Lahore’ after a friend got him addicted to long walks ‘at a time when Lahore was beautifully walkable’86 In Thandi Sarak (Cool Street), his character observes the daily routines of Lahoris from different walks of life, walking along the picturesque backdrop of the Mall, reminding us of Pessoa’s solitary squares and traffic-less roads.

Similarly, Sara Suleri Goodyear remembers Lahore, as a city that sprawls and where the core keeps shifting. ‘The Old City defies the monotony of centuries… When the Old City withers, they say, so will Lahore. Lahore is a city of untold monuments: a space startling with the stories it can tell. The Badshahi remains for me the most perfect of Mosques.’87 Zumthor’s suggestion that the roots of our architectural experiences ‘lie in our biography’88, therefore, can be seen in the way Lahore’s features are used in later literature. As Shah notes, “Those who know Lahore intimately can feel its romance as they gaze across the roof tops of the Walled City89”, the depiction of which contributes to Lahore’s image in collective memory.

Fig 2.6 The iconic white marble domes of the Badshahi Mosque at sunset

86 (Ahmed, 2005) 87 Lahore Remembered: Sara Suleri Goodyear (Sidhwa, 2005) 88 (Zumthor, 1998) 89 (Shah, 2005) 27

LENS I - WRITTEN DEPICTION

Fig 2.7 The entrance to the Badshahi Mosque at sunrise

28

3.0 LENS II - VISUAL DEPICTION

3.0 LENS II - VISUAL DEPICTION Cityscapes and scenes are composed to showcase artists’ impressions of architectural atmospheres, evoking memories or memorializing the place through their depiction. Westwood & Williams, in their cities and memory, suggest that visual depictions ‘transform our sense for the real’90 and have a great impact on the city’s image in memory.

Although images were initially used to ‘capture appearances of the absent’91, once it became evident that images could outlast what they signified, they began to memorialize places and experiences. This gave an insight to how artists experienced the city, what they found interesting and what details filtered into their work. ‘The image of a city’, according to Boyer, ‘becomes a succinct record of what we consider to be present reality- We use these images to travel back in time, freeze a particular moment or to recall bits and pieces of an earlier city or place’92.

The architectural atmosphere of a city also becomes iconic with time, and can be used to identify the city instantly. As ‘memory device’ this can work in three ways, according to Pallasmaa: ‘it can preserve the course of time, concretize remembrance and stimulate us to imagine.93 Quintilian describes these as chosen places, imprinted on the mind94, so that a person may be able to trace the route through their memory at use it to illustrate his experiences.

Examples of such depictions can be found in paintings by travellers and artists who portray their impressions of the architectural atmosphere. A closer look at the artists of the Grand Tour, Piranesi and Canaletto, shows us how cities were depicted in Western art.

90 (Westwood & Williams, 1997) 91 (Berger, Ways of Seeing, 1972) 92 (Boyer, 1994) 93 (Pallasmaa, 2009) 94 (Frank, 1983) 30

LENS II - VISUAL DEPICTION

3.1 PIRANESI’S ROME

The study of architecture is often linked to ‘The Grand Tour’, a traditional trip taken around Europe by wealthy young men of Britain in the 1600s. They were expected to return with mementos of their journey and ‘an understanding of art and architecture formed by exposure to various masterpieces’95.

Tourists captured their experiences and memories by painting what they had seen96, or by employing artists to do so. Impressions of these places were then relayed back to their stay-at-home peers whose future itineraries were influenced by the depicted atmospheres, ‘Classical taste and an interest in exotic customs’.97 One of the artists that benefited from the patronage of tourists who collected mementos of their experiences was Piranesi.

Lynch’s idea that a place has to be experienced through ‘long familiarity’98 in order to have a memorable impression can be seen in Piranesi’s observations of Rome. ‘Piranesi found an outlet for designing fantastic complexes of buildings that could exist only in dreams’99, in his etchings. According to Piranesi himself, the piles of marble and vast architectural remains ‘had filled his spirit with magnificent images’100, which he memorialised through his work. The unrealistic composition in Fig. 3.1a, the deliberate spatial ambiguities and walls resembling the Pantheon’s interior, give us a sense of the spaces and architectural elements that left an impression on the artist’s memory.

The Vedute di Roma (Views of Rome, 1747), Piranesi’s most famous works (Fig 3.1 b-f) cast a shadow on earlier depictions of Roman monuments and affected audiences perceptions to the extent that visitors who knew Rome through Piranesi’s prints, were disappointed when they visited the actual city.101 The etchings show the city of Rome’s most iconic built structures in dramatically emphasized perspectives, which indicate Piranesi's interest in the urban morphology. One of Piranesi’s biographers writes that he ‘committed to memory, the appearance of changing light on the ancient walls’102, which made his depiction of Rome so unique. In Fig. 3.1b, Piranesi conveys the size of the ruined Colosseum in bird’s eye view. The darkness of the image, showing the Colosseum in moon-light shows that Piranesi studied the ruins under these conditions.103 Lynch’s claim that a person holds the mental image of a place as a result of a memory of a past experience is evident through Piranesi’s depictions of Rome. As McDowall suggests, ‘(Piranesi) loved dramatized decay - it was an integral part of his vision, his Rome being a city of great contrasts. Piranesi’s world was a visual feast that many people would like to relate to, whether in his day or ours’.104

95 (Sorabella, 2000) 96 (Black, 2003) 97 (Sorabella, 2000) 98 (Lynch, 1960) 99 (Thompson W. , 2003) 100 (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000-2018) 101 (Thompson W. , 2003) 102 (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000-2018) 103 Ibid.

104 (McDowall, 2014) 31

LENS II - VISUAL DEPICTION

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

(e)

(f)

Fig 3.1 (a-f) Piranesi’s Views of Rome (Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000)

32

LENS II - VISUAL DEPICTION

3.2 CANALETTO’S VENICE

A contemporary of Piranesi, Canaletto, painted several views of Venice as souvenirs for British tourists who were part of the Grand Tour105. During this time, Canaletto solely dedicated his time to impressions of Venice, memorializing the city for audiences abroad. Our impressions of Venice, therefore, have been greatly informed by Canaletto’s depictions. Like Piranesi, Canaletto’s work ‘transforms our sense of the real’106, affected the city’s image to an extent that a tourist in 1774 wrote: “After seeing Canaletto’s view…

There was neither the symmetry nor the richness of materials I expected (in the actual city)”.107 Canaletto meticulously observed Venice’s architectural atmosphere from multiple perspectives. He manipulated space and made slight alterations to details visible from a particular location, ‘creating idealised views of the city’.108 “The Bacino of San Marco on Ascension Day” (Fig. 3.2a) and “A Regatta in the Grand Canal” (Fig. 3.2b), show a ceremonious Venice and showcase Canaletto’s practice of spatial manipulation. Iconic Venetian landmarks are used, but certain details are diminished or added to ‘ramp up the spectacle and restrict the asymmetric, disorderly reality’109, Thom observes. Furthermore, he frequently displaced buildings, added or subtracted roof details if it helped create a more harmonious depiction of the city.110 In his work ‘Capriccio Palladiano’ (Fig. 3.2c) Canaletto plays on merging the real with the imagined. He provides an ‘architectural palimpsest of Palladio’s works’111 and uses his work to question what the city would look like if Palladio’s designs had been used in the urban fabric of Venice. He realistically merges together architectural details of Palladio’s unbuilt design for the bridge with built works in Vicenza, in a convincing perspective. As a result, we see Canaletto’s talents not only in depicting the city in landscape views, but also in depicting fantasies of the city in idealistic views, ‘Vedute Ideate’. 112 Canaletto, through his cityscapes, produced fanciful views and picturesque details of the everyday life in the city of Venice. This depiction of the city of Venice highlights Pallasmaa’s claim that spaces, as memory devices, ‘stimulate our imagination’113. Canaletto’s observations of the architectural atmosphere ‘evoked a uniquely Venetian atmosphere’,114 and contributed to the city’s image in collective memory. It is this Venice, ‘without the scrubbed, polished, sunny splendour that became the Canaletto cliché’115 and which Grand Tourists would take back as a memento of time spent in the city.

105 (Black, 2003) 106 (Westwood & Williams, 1997) 107 (Rachel Spence, 2017) 108 (The Royal Collection Trust, 2006) 109 (Thom, 2017) 110 (Thom, 2017) 111 (Steil, 2014); Palladio – Influential Italian architect of the 1500s 112 (Steil, 2014) 113 (Pallasmaa, 2009) 114 (The Morgan Library and Museum, 2018) 115 (Kennicott, 2011) 33

LENS II - VISUAL DEPICTION

Fig 3.2 (a) The Bacino of San Marco on Ascension Day (Source: The Morgan Library and Museum, 2018)

Fig 3.2 (b) A Regatta in the Grand Canal (Source: The Royal Collection Trust, 2006)

Fig 3.2 (c) Capriccio View with Palladio’s Design for the Rialto Bridge (Source: The Royal Collection Trust, 2006)

34

LENS II - VISUAL DEPICTION

3.3 THE ARTISTS’ LAHORE

A strong mental image of an experience helps develop an understanding of the city’s atmosphere, suggests Lynch116. According to Boyer, these images help us travel back in time117, stimulate our imagination and to recall spaces experienced earlier. Memories of Lahore were captured through various painted or drawn images, which memorialized the ‘passing present’ in the works of travellers using elements of the architectural atmosphere to portray significant Mughal events or to preserve a particular observation in time.

Although Lahore was an important Mughal capital, its pictorial depictions are limited to a few Persian-style miniatures published in the ‘Shah Jahan-Nama’, a chronicle written in the 17th century about Emperor Shah Jahan’s reign. Architectural presence is often limited to the background in Persian miniatures, which are painted in a two-dimensional style, and serve a kind of set backdrop118 to tell detailed narratives of the courts’ splendours.

These miniature paintings memorialized the important events that took place during Shah Jahan’s rule, such as the reception of a Persian General Ali Mardan Khan (November 1638)119, who surrendered the city of Qandahar to Shah Jahan. In this scene (Fig.3.3), the city is represented by the architectural elements of its most notable monument, the Lahore Fort, and is used to portray the grandeur of the Mughal court in Lahore. In accordance with the protocol of the Mughal period, the people are drawn hierarchically from the majestic ruler and there is a strong symbolism in the way the architecture is presented in relation to the Emperor, depicting him on a grand throne of the balcony in his hall of audience, while painted angels gaze down from the walls.120 This not only depicted the importance of the emperor, but also gives us a sense of how architectural features were used to preserve the memory of the Emperor and his reign for years to come.

The earliest depiction of Lahore as a citadel, however, according to Aijazuddin’s collection of the 19th century depictions of Lahore, is a large painting done by an unknown artist in the early 1800s121 (Fig.3.4a).

This painting depicts the Walled City and its surroundings spread flat in a two-dimensional composition.

However, even though the perspective has been distorted, Lahore is recognisable by its memorable landmarks, such as the Badshahi Mosque, the gardens between the Mosque and the Lahore Fort. The citadel is shown in the lower half of the picture, symbolizing the actual hive of shops and private dwellings in which Lahore’s population lived and traded within the protection of the city walls.

Lahore continued to be depicted in two-dimensional miniatures by local artists till the late 19th century.

The subject matter remained the iconic monuments of the Walled City and the Lahore Fort, which were beneficial in documenting the structures in their current state, thus ‘freezing them in time’122, but were of little value in trying to getting a sense of Lahore’s urban web. The depiction of the Badshahi Mosque (Fig.3.4b) showcases the mosque’s vastness in a two-dimensional bird’s-eye view, and documents the 116 (Lynch, 1960) 117 (Boyer, 1994) 118 (Graves, 2011) 119 (Begley & Desai, 1990) 120 (Topsfield, 1994) 121 (Aijazuddin, 2004) 122 (Boyer, 1994) 35

LENS II - VISUAL DEPICTION

Fig 3.3 Miniature Painting (Source: ShahJahanNama.1990)

36

LENS II - VISUAL DEPICTION

Fig 3.4 (a) Depiction of Lahore; unknown artist (b) Miniature painting of Badhshahi mosque after restoration (Sources: Aijazuddin.2004)

Fig 3.5 Streetscape; unknown female artist (Source: Aijazuddin.2004)

37

LENS II - VISUAL DEPICTION

mosque after substantial restoration123.

To catch a glimpse of the Lahore’s architectural atmosphere in perspective, we turn to depictions by European travellers in the 19th century. As Thompson observed while in Lahore (1911), “I have not yet seen a picture with an architectural subject that could be dated earlier than 1830. Such pictures always show traces of European Influence, and the demand for them was probably created by European residents and Travellers”.124 Similar to the Grand Tour, travelling artists interpreted and showcased their memorable experiences in perspective through images painted in the style of European landscape art125.

During this period, a large number of illustrations depicting the city of Lahore belonged to a female artist, which were reproduced as lithographs in London. The artist has depicted Lahore’s prominent mosques (Fig.3.6), and a street scene from the Walled City (Fig.3.5), which she describes as picturesque, with lofty houses and carved, overhanging windows. Aijazuddin notes that, ‘one senses an awareness of the deterioration in the monuments she saw but could not arrest except by the use of her sketchpad and paint-box’126.

Fig 3.6 Mosques; unknown female artist (Source: Aijazuddin.2004)

Similarly, William Simpson and William Carpenter127, two professional painters depicted Lahore and its vibrant urban atmosphere with supreme expertise. Simpson worked as an illustrator therefore his picture have a studied preparedness about them. His sketch of the Moti Bazaar (Fig.3.7c) is more a study of the Walled City’s architectural language, whereas the watercolour view of the Wazir Khan Mosque, introduced small details of daily life at the heart of the Walled City (Fig.3.9). This depicted the architectural atmosphere of Lahore as a stage where ‘the drama of everyday life unfolds’128, giving us an insight to what, from the city’s architectural elements, had the most memorable impression on the artist.

Carpenter’s portrayals of Lahore’s streets (Fig.3.7a-b) vividly capture the essence of everyday life and the illuminating effects of sunlight on the architectural monuments. He was known to adopt local dressing129 123 (Aijazuddin, 2004) 124 (Thompson J. , 1911); (Aijazuddin, 2004) 125 (Mackenzie, 2017) 126 (Aijazuddin, 2004) 127 (PEPAC, 1993) 128 (Vandal & Vandal, 2006) 129 (Victoria and Albert Museum, 2008) 38

LENS II - VISUAL DEPICTION

Fig 3.7 (a and b) Streetscapes; W. Carpenter (c) Moti Bazaar; W. Simpson (Source: Aijazuddin.2004)

Fig 3.8 Entrance to the Wazir Khan Mosque, William Carpenter (Source: V&A 2008)

Fig 3.9 Entrance to the Wazir Khan Mosque, William Simpson (Source: Aijazuddin.2008)

39

LENS II - VISUAL DEPICTION

to enhance his experience of his tours, which may be the reason his work ‘evokes a gentle romanticism’130.

His watercolour of the entrance of the Wazir Khan Mosque accentuates the grand scale of the mosque by the use of the figures in the foreground (Fig.3.8) and, like Simpson’s work, gives an insight to the domestic life in the main public square of the Walled City.

These European artists revive some of the drama associated with the 19th century by capturing their memorable experiences in perspective drawings. Like Piranesi and Canaletto, their work serves as a reminder of aspects of Lahore’s past through the depiction of the monuments and their portrayal during that period.131 Their work was reproduced as engravings in the Illustrated London News and through their eyes readers were able to experiences Lahore’s memorable spaces, regardless of time or distance from city132.

Lahore has also been memorialised in measured detail during the colonial period under John Lockwood Kipling, who set up the Mayo School of Arts and supervised the construction of the new colonial vernacular.

In recent studies of Kipling’s pedagogic principles133 it appears that he greatly appreciated the Indian greatly and ‘took up the challenging task of saving the dying crafts’134 through painted documentation.

He urged his students document Lahore’s architecture through detailed water-coloured elevations. Of these, the most iconic documentations were of the Wazir Khan Mosque by Kipling’s student Mohammad Din (Fig.3.10) that are now on display at the Victoria & Albert Museum. Local housing typologies of the Walled City were also documented and used in C. Purdon Clarke’s talk on Domestic Indian Architecture in 1883 at the London Society of Arts.135 (Fig.3.11) This was another mode of preserving the architectural atmosphere of a place that years later, serve as ‘memory devices’. The architecture of India had long been a topic of interest in England, and therefore, these depictions were used to provide a detailed image of the distinctive architectural language of Lahore, and how it symbolised the strength and permanence of Lahore.

Fig 3.10 Measured Elevations of the Wazir Khan Mosque and its entrance; Muhammad Din 1883 (Source: V&A 2018)

130 (Victoria and Albert Museum, 2008) 131 (Aijazuddin, 2004) 132 (Aijazuddin, 2004) 133 (Weber & Bryant, 2016) 134 (Khan, 2016) 135 (Glover, 2008) 40

LENS II - VISUAL DEPICTION

Fig 3.11 Measured orthographics of residential buildings of the Walled City (Source: Glover 2008)

41

LENS II - VISUAL DEPICTION

Berger argues that an every image embodies a way of seeing, however, our perception of an image also depends on our way of seeing136. Like the Piranesi and Canaletto’s work, depictions of Lahore meant to showcase the vibrant culture for people to experience ‘regardless of time and distance’, but as Lynch, Zumthor and Heidegger suggest, the perception of a place lies in the lived experience of the people who inhabit it. Therefore, in recent years, the local artists of Lahore have been inspired by their memories of Lahore in differently, undertones of which are evident in their brushstrokes.

Aijaz Anwar, a prominent Pakistani artist who began painting in the late 1950’s, focuses on architectural atmosphere of the Walled City. He uses his artwork as a call to ‘preserve the essence of historic architecture of the city’137. His work captures the daily life of Lahore, in the narrow streets of the Walled City’s urban web, experimenting with the compositions and angles, like Piranesi. According to Anwar, “Lahore is dying.

The entire city is on the death bed. This is an appeal to save the city”.138 Similar to Canaletto, he attempts to preserve the city by painting views of crumbling architecture or soon to be demolished buildings, replacing skyscrapers with tongas and sweetmeat shops139, thus memorialising and capturing the true atmosphere of Lahore. (Fig.3.12-3.13) Similarly, Sarfaraz Musawir depicts Lahore’s rich urban fabric through vibrant cityscapes to play a role in the preservation of Walled City. His fascination with the Mughal and Colonial landmarks became a source of inspiration for Musawir’s work when he moved to Lahore. According to Musawir, “The Walled City, with its captivating buildings, narrow streets, old bazaars, and residents who have lived there for generations, has attracted me the most. This part of the old city is now dilapidated. Beautiful buildings have been demolished, and others are under threat of being grounded.”140 (Fig.3.14) In tracing the depictions of the city of Lahore and its architectural atmosphere, we see that images have been used to as ‘vessels of memory’ to capture or ‘freeze a particular moment in time’141, as Boyer suggested. The architectural elements of the Lahore and its landmarks are the used, as in the work of Piranesi and Canaletto, to provide a backdrop to a narrative or for foreigners to take back snippets of memorable experiences in Lahore.

Fig 3.12 Ajaz Anwar’s depiction of Old Lahore (Source: Painters of Pakistan 2018)

136 (Berger, Ways of Seeing, 1972) 137 (Malik, 2013) 138 (Malik, 2013) 139 (Pakistan Art Review, 2011) 140 (Shahid, 2015) 141 (Boyer, 1994) 42

LENS II - VISUAL DEPICTION

Fig 3.13 Ajaz Anwar’s depiction of Lahore (Source: Painters of Pakistan 2018)

Fig 3.14 Sarfraz Musawir’s depiction of teh Walled City (Source: Articiti.2018)

43

4.0 CONCLUSION

4.0 CONCLUSION A look through the lenses of literal and visual depiction reveals, layer by layer, the profound strata of Lahore’s encounters with its observers and the importance of architecture in leaving a memorable impression on them. The observer then uses the mental image142 of this impression to relive their memories by depicting the city and its architectural atmosphere in their work Ultimately, the representation of a city in terms of architectural experiences can be classified into the memorialisation of historical encounters and memorable spatial experiences. As Frank suggests, ‘architecture and memory function as ‘devices’ each in service of the other. Architecture is used as a structural model for remembering’143.

Using the literal lens, we see Lisbon and Venice through the eyes of Pessoa and Calvino, who use literature as a ‘vessel’144 to contain impressions of memorable places. Pessoa’s work gives us a glimpse of his direct observations of the architectural elements, while Calvino uses his character to explain the impact of Venice on a person’s memory. By describing the city they suggest the many different ways in which architecture can be interpreted and that each feature holds a significant memory.

Similarly, written depictions of Lahore reveal how experiences of the architectural atmosphere filtered into the work of various travellers, writers and poets. Accounts of Lahore during the Mughal period memorialize the city by describing its gardens, luxurious palaces, meticulous decoration and grand towering structures, giving us a sense of how the city was meant to be remembered in collective memory – as a symbol of the Empire’s power. In later literature, we see the Walled City as more of an inspiration, which we can compare with Pessoa’s and Calvino’s depictions of Lisbon and Venice. While Kipling is known for using his observations of the urban web of the Walled City in his work, later writers use Lahore’s monumental structures directly as a set where their narratives unfold, romanticising memories of the city’s architecture, and presenting an image of Lahore that transcends time and distance.

Studying Piranesi and Canaletto through the lens of visual depiction, we can see the attempt to romanticise the image of Rome and Venice in the accentuated features of the cityscapes in their depictions. Piranesi’s intriguing views of Rome, inspired by his observations of the city’s architecture, depicted it as a theatrical stage set which gave a sense of fantasy to the audience. Canaletto on the other hand provided ideal views of the city through distorted perspective, using lighting to animate the architectural atmosphere of Venice for the British tourists to take back as mementos and add to its collective memory.

Painted images served a similar purpose for Lahore’s architectural atmosphere, where we see images used as vessels to contain memorable impressions. Miniature paintings show the detailed ornamentation of Lahore’s palace which was meant to portray the Mughal Empire’s strength through visions of its capital.

142 (Lynch, 1960) 143 (Frank, 1983) 144 (Pallasmaa, 2009) 45

CONCLUSION

Like Piranesi’s depictions of Rome, these give a sense of fantasy and act as a ‘stage backdrop’ where the audience could imagine themselves to be. The depictions by 19th century travellers added depth to these visions through European style perspective drawings, where they showcase the spectacles of daily life that animated the hive of the architectural monuments, and narrate to the audience their observations through paintings.

Measured depictions further memorialised Lahore’s architectural atmosphere and served as a lesson in traditional building and decoration techniques, thus preserving lost skills and providing material to understand Lahore’s architectural language. Later depictions also preserve memories of the ‘ideal’ Lahore or the Old Lahore and, like Canaletto, these artists pick and choose perspectives, streets and buildings, replacing modern skyscrapers. The idea was to add a more ‘authentic’ image of Lahore to its collective memory and therefore safeguarding the architectural heritage.

Architectural elements such as white domes, minarets or streets with ‘bustling bazaars’ are associated with royalty, with Mughal patronage, and with Lahore itself. Lahore is defined by reference to height and scape, its ‘statuesque splendour’145, suggesting its permanence and strength. Therefore, we see that all depictions of Lahore, literal or visual, chronologically develop a collective memory of the city, through the use of monumental architecture and streetscapes making the city accessible to a wider audience.

Both lenses, make it clear to see that both literal and visual depictions of Lahore’s memories are supported by ‘visions’ of Lahore’s Walled City and monuments. Perhaps because depictions of Lahore over time have made these monuments ‘iconic’, they are heavily integrated into the image of Lahore, and so, as Zumthor suggests, the city can no longer be imagined without them. Although the city has substantially grown outside the walls over time, these monuments remain the main focus of the collective ‘image’ of Lahore, making the city instantly identifiable. These architectural features of Lahore’s Walled City and its landmarks are then used, to provide a setting to narrate one’s memories of Lahore.

145 Originally written in Urdu, published in Bang-e-Dara, Translated by Parizad Sidhwa (Sidhwa, 2005) 46

5.0 BIBLIOGRAPHY

5.0 BIBLIOGRAPHY Academy of American Poets. (2017). Fernando Pessoa. Retrieved from Poets.org: https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/fernando-pessoa Ahmed, K. (2005). Intezar Hussain's Lahore. In B. Sidhwa, City of Sin and Splendour (p. 286). New Delhi: Penguin India.

Aijazuddin, F. (2004). Lahore - Illustrated Views of the 19th Century. Ahmedabad: Mapin Publishing.

Batalvi, I. H. (2005). Kipling's Lahore: The City of Dreadful Night. In B. Sidhwa, City of Sin and Splendour (pp. 263270). New Delhi: Penguin.

Beddington, C. (2011). Venice - Canaletto and His Rivals. London: Yale University Press.

Begley, W., & Desai, Z. (1990). Shah Jahan-Nama of Inayat Khan - Nineteenth Century Manuscript and Translation.

(A. Fuller, Trans.) Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Berger, J. (1972). Ways of Seeing. London : Penguin Books.

Berger, J. (1980). About Looking. New York : Pantheon Books.

Birbeck College: Deaprtment of History of Art. (1994). New Interpretations of Venetian Renaissace Painting. London: University of London.

Black, J. (2003). Italy and the Grand Tour. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Boyer, M. C. (1994). The City of Collective Memory - Its Historical Imagery and Architectural Entertainment. Massachusetts: MIT Press.

Broida, M. (2015, September 23). The City of Lost Things: Rediscovering Fernando Pessoa’s ‘The Book of Disquiet’.

Retrieved from The Millions: https://themillions.com/2015/09/the-city-of-lost-things-rediscovering-fernando-pessoas-the-book-of-disquiet.html Bryant, J. (2016). Kiplin and Architecture. In S. Weber, & J. Bryant, John Lockwood Kipling - Arts & Crafts in the Punjab and London (pp. 107-121). New Haven: Yale University Press.

Calvino, I. (1974). Invisible Cities. London: Vintage Books.

Fazl, A. (1873). The Ain-i-Akbari (Translated from the orignial Persian) (Vol. 1). (H. Blochmann, Trans.) Calcutta: Baptist Mission Press.

Fernández, G. (2011). Painting the City: The History of Cityscapes. Retrieved from The Art Wolf - Online Art Magazine: http://www.theartwolf.com/articles/cityscape-painting.htm Finch, W. (1611). Observations of William Finch, Merchant, taken out of his journal.

Frank, E. E. (1983). Literary Architecture - Essays towards tradition. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

Friedmann, J. (1961). Cities in Social Transformation. Comparative Studies in Society and History , 4(1), 86-103.

Gharipour, M., & Ozlu, N. (2015). City in the Muslim World: Depictions by Western Travel Writers. London: Routledge.

Glover, W. J. (2008). Making Lahore Modern - Constructing and Imagining a Colonial City. Minneapolis : University of Minnesota.

48

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Graves, M. (2011). Inside and Outside, Picture and Page: The Architectural Spaces of Miniature Painting. In A. K. Culture, In Architecture in Islamic Arts: Treasures of the Aga Khan Museum. Geneva: Aga Khan Trust for Culture.

Gulliver, D. K., & Tรณth, D. H. (2014). Cityscapes in History: Creating the Urban Experience. Surrey: Ashgate.

Hawksley, L. (2017). The Writer Abroad - Literary Travels from Austria to Uzbekistan. London: British Library Board.

Howard, D. (2000). Venice & the East: The Impact of the Islamic World on Venetian Architecture. Yale University Press.

Kaplan, R. D. (1989). "Lahore as Kipling Knew It" . The New York Times.

Kennicott, P. (2011, February). Canaletto's paintings showed more than the tourist side of Venice. Retrieved from Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/canalettos-paintings-showed-morethan-the-tourist-side-of-venice/2011/02/20/ABJ9eyH_story.html?utm_term=.d81b3b396c69 Khan, N. S. (2016). Industrial Art Education in Colonial Punjab: Kipling's Pedagogy and Heriditary Craftsmen. In S. Weber, & J. Bryant, John Lockwood Kipling - Arts & Crafts in the Punjab and London (pp. 469-486). New Haven: Yale University Press.

Kipling, R. (1922). Kim (Woodsworth Edition 2009 ed.). Hertfordshire: Woodsworth Editions Ltd. Latif, S. M. (1892). Lahore: Its Historical, Architectural Remains and Antiquities. Lahore: New Imperial Press.

Lindner, C. (2006). Urban Space and Cityscapes: Perspectives from Modern and Contemporary Culture. Abingdon: Routledge.

Lynch, K. (1960). The Image of a City . Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.

Mackenzie, J. M. (2017). Art and Empire - Painting India. Retrieved 2018, from British Empire: http://www.britishempire.co.uk/art/artindia.htm Malik, S. (2013, April). Architectural nostalgia: Ajaz Anwar recreates Old Lahore in water colour. Retrieved from The Express Tribune: https://tribune.com.pk/story/538378/architectural-nostalgia-ajaz-anwar-recreates-old-lahore-in-water-colour/ McDowall, C. (2014, February 19). Piranesi's Vision of Rome. Retrieved from The Cultural Concept Circle: https:// www.thecultureconcept.com/piranesis-vision-of-rome-dramatized-decay-at-melbourne Metropolitan Museum of Art. (2000-2018). Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. Retrieved from Metropolitan Museum of Art: https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/37.45.3.49/ Modena, L. (2011). Italo Calvino's Architecture of Lightness. London: Routledge.

Noe, S. (1980). In search of the traditional Islamic City: an analytical proposal with Lahore as a case study. Ekistiks 280.

Pakistan Art Review. (2011). Dr. Ajaz Anwar- Lahore Incarnated. Retrieved from Pakistan Art Review: http://www. pakistanartreview.net/48th_Issue/48th_Page_4.html Pallasmaa, J. (2009). Space, Place, Memory and lmagination: The Temporal - Architecture and Memory. In M. Trieb, Spatial Recall: Memory in Architecture and Landscape. New York: Routledge.

PEPAC, P. E. (1993). The Walled City of Lahore. Lahore: Lahore Development Authority.

Pessoa, F. (2001). The Book of Disquiet. London: Penguin Books.

Plant, M. (2002). Venice: Fragile City, 1797-1997. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Qadeer, M. A. (1983). Lahore: Urban Development in the Third World. Lahore: Vanguard Books.

Qureshi, S. (1989). Lahore - The City Within. Lahore: Routledge.

49

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Rachel Spence. (2017, June). Canaletto: visions of a Venice even better than the real thing. Retrieved from Financial Times: https://www.ft.com/content/ec080af4-3f07-11e7-82b6-896b95f30f58 Reeh, H. (2004). Ornaments of the Metropolis - Sigfried Kracauer and Modern Urban Culture. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Shah, B. (2005). A Love Affair with Lahore. In B. Sidhwa, City of Sin and Splendour (p. 225). New Delhi: Penguin India.

Shahid, J. (2015, January). Paintings document life in Lahore’s walled city. Retrieved from Dawn.com: https://www. dawn.com/news/1206036 Sidhwa, B. (2005). City of Sin and Splendour - writings on Lahore. New Delhi: Penguin Books India.

Sorabella, J. (2000). 'The Grand Tour' from Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. Retrieved from Museum of Metropolitan Art: http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/grtr/hd_grtr.htm Steil, L. (2014). The Architectural Capriccio: Memory, Fantasy and Invention. Ashgate Publishing.

The Morgan Library and Museum. (2018). Canaletto. Retrieved from The Morgan Library and Museum: http:// www.themorgan.org/collection/drawings/141078 The Royal Collection Trust. (2006). Canaletto in Venice - Press Release. Retrieved from The Royal Collectioin Trust: https://www.royalcollection.org.uk/about/press-office/press-releases/canaletto-in-venice#/ Thom, D. (2017, June). How Canaletto constructed a better view of Venice. Retrieved from Apollo: https://www. apollo-magazine.com/how-canaletto-constructed-a-better-view-of-venice/ Thompson, J. (1911). The Tomb of Emperor Jehangir. Journal of the Punjab Historical Society Vol. 1, 25.

Thompson, W. (2003, October). Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720–1778). Retrieved from Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art 2000-: http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/pira/ hd_pira.htm Topsfield, A. (1994). Indian Paintings: From Oxford Collections. Oxford: Ashmolean Museum.

Vandal, S., & Vandal, P. (2006). The Raj, Lahore and Bhai Ram Singh. Lahore: Research and Publication Centre, National College of Arts.

Victoria and Albert Museum. (2008). The Musjid of Wazeer Ali Khan, Lahore, Panjab'. Retrieved from Victoria and Albert Museum: http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O108194/the-musjid-of-wazeer-ali-painting-carpenterwilliam/ Vogel, J. P. (1920). Tile Mosaics of the Lahore Fort. Lahore.

Walker, C. (2017, November). Lisbon: Beyond What the Tourist Should See. Retrieved from Los Angeles Review of Books: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/lisbon-beyond-tourist-see/#!

Weber, S., & Bryant, J. (2016). John Lockwood Kipling - Arts & Crafts in the Punjab and London. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Weber, Susan; Bryant, Julius. (2016). John Lockwood Kipling - Arts and Crafts in the Punjab and London. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Westwood, S., & Williams, J. (1997). Imagining Cities. London: Routledge.

Winchester, S., & Morris, J. (1983). Stones of the Empire. New York: Oxford University Press.

Yuen, I. (2015, June 21). Place and Memory: Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities. Retrieved from Ekostories: https:// ekostories.com/2015/06/21/italo-calvino-invisible-cities/ Zaman, T. R. (2015). Nostalgia, Lahore, and the Ghost of Aurangzeb. Retrieved from Fragments - Study of Ancient and Medieval Pasts: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/f/frag/9772151.0004.001/--nostalgia-lahore-and-the-ghost-of-aurangzeb?rgn=main;view=fulltext#N3-ptr1

50

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Zenith, R., & Campos, A. d. (2017, April). Lisbon Revisited (1926) – English Version. Retrieved from Bagunça Interna: https://baguncainterna.wordpress.com/2012/04/05/lisbon-revisited-1923-english-version/ Zumthor, P. (1998). Thinking Architecture. Birkhauser.

LIST OF FIGURES All illustrations and photographs (including cover page illustrations) are author’s own work except the following: Fig 1.2 Javed Zakaraiya , Flickr.com, 2013 Fig 1.4 Liaqat Ali Vance, Flickr.com, 2016 Fig 1.5 and 1.7 (a-c) PEPAC, P. E. (1993). The Walled City of Lahore. Lahore: Lahore Development Authority.

Fig 2.1 a - Res Obscura, 2010, https://resobscura.blogspot.co.uk/2010/12/lisbon-before-great-earthquake.html Fig 2.1 b - A cidade Branca.2018, http://acidadebranca.tumblr.com/tagged/Lisboa/page/5 Fig 2.2 Islamic Art and Architecture 2012, http://islamic-arts.org/2012/kitab-i-bahriye-book-of-the-sea/ Fig 2.4 Abdullah Sultan, 2018, Aga Khan Cultural Service Paksitan Fig. 2.5 Kaleem Ullah, 2016, Flickr.com Fig. 2.5 b Muhammad Ashar, 2017, Flickr.com Fig 3.1 (a-f) Metropolitan Museum of Art. (2000-2018). Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. Retrieved from Metropolitan Museum of Art: https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/37.45.3.49/ Fig 3.2 a - The Morgan Library and Museum. (2018). Canaletto. Retrieved from The Morgan Library and Museum: http://www.themorgan.org/collection/drawings/141078 Fig 3.2 b and c - The Royal Collection Trust. (2006). Canaletto in Venice- Press Release. Retrieved from The Royal Collectioin Trust: https://www.royalcollection.org.uk/about/press-office/press-releases/canaletto-in-venice#/ Fig 3.3 Begley, W., & Desai, Z. (1990). Shah Jahan-Nama of Inayat Khan - Nineteenth Century Manuscript and Translation. (A. Fuller, Trans.) Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Figs 3.4 to 3.7 - Aijazuddin, F. (2004). Lahore - Illustrated Views of the 19th Century. Ahmedabad: Mapin Publishing.

Fig 3.8 and 3.10 Victoria and Albert Museum. (2008). The Musjid of Wazeer Ali Khan, Lahore, Panjab’. Retrieved from Victoria and Albert Museum: http://collections.vam.ac.uk Fig 3.11 Glover, W. J. (2008). Making Lahore Modern - Constructing and Imagining a Colonial City. Minneapolis : University of Minnesota.

Fig 3.12 and 3.13 Ajaz Anwar, Painters of Pakistan; https://paintersofpakistan.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/aa4.jpg Fig. 3.14 Sarfraz Musawir - Articity- https://www.artciti.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=4417

51