IJIA 2.1 FM 1-2.Indd

IJIA 2 (1) pp. 125–156 Intellect Limited 2013 International Journal of Islamic Architecture Volume 2 Number 1 © 2013 Intellect Ltd Article. English language. doi: 10.1386/ijia.2.1.125_1 Ahmed Z. Khan KU-Leuven On Design and Politics of Co-producing Public Space: The Long Marches and the Reincarnation of the ‘Forecourt’ of the Pakistani Nation Abstract Keywords The rise in the political power of social media technologies has led to claims public space about their democratizing and empowering functions. On the one hand, the co-production a-spatial theorization of this ‘rise’ undermines the value and role of public space. On design the other, it raises questions about traditional ways of conceptualizing this space. place-making With the intention of broadening the concept of public space, this article investigates long march key socio-political processes behind temporal events like the ‘long march’ or Occupy new media movements, and how spatial forms of streets and public spaces interact in producing Pakistan the image, value and meaning of public space. I assemble a theoretical framework in order to analyse a specific case: the ‘long marches’ and reincarnation of the ‘forecourt’ of the Pakistani nation that materialized in three public spaces in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad. By focusing on the spatiality of contemporary long marches, my analyses carefully unravels the intertwinement of design and politics in socio- spatial … these public spaces, and concludes that social processes and spatial forms co-define each other. Introduction There is a growing consensus around the universal need for public space in cities to enhance the quality of public life.1 Inclusive and accessible public space constituted by networks of streets, plazas, squares, parks and other open spaces 125 IJIA 2.1_Khan_125-156.indd 125 2/18/13 6:38:33 PM Ahmed Z. Khan support human interaction, social integration and tolerance.2 Their presence is crucial for social movements that struggle to deepen the roots of democracy and create new, more egalitarian forms of sociality.3 Such spaces impart social and symbolic values by contributing to psychological well-being or, more broadly, by furthering the possibility for ‘democratic ideals, good citizenship, a sense of freedom, civic pride and responsibilities’.4 However, since the last decade, the conceptualization of values commonly associated with public space has witnessed some fundamental shifts.5 These shifts mainstream a ‘narrative of loss’ that highlights the shrinking and erosion of ‘public space’ traditionally based on the distinction between public and private realms.6 In particular, the rise in the political power of ‘new social media’ technologies that aid the ‘new social movements’ (events, Occupy movements, long march, etc.), and their claimed democratizing and empowering functions, raise questions about traditional conceptualizations of public space.7 The a-spatial theorization of this ‘rise’ that undermines the value and role of public space is the broader problematic that frames this article. With an increasingly networked population, social media offers an enhanced capability to coordinate collective action and has become a wide- spread fact of life for civil society worldwide.8 The oft-cited example of social media’s increased political power is the ouster of Joseph Estrada in the Philippines in 2001, when Estrada himself blamed ‘the text-messaging gener- ation’ for his downfall. Since then, the Philippines’ strategy with enhanced social media tools has faced successes, as well as failures.9 However, what is clearly evident in many of these events – the Arab spring (December 2010–), the Justice Movement in Pakistan (March 2007–), Occupy and other new social movements – is the coordinated use of social media and physical occu- pation, the temporary appropriation and claiming of public spaces in achiev- ing political objectives and the enhancement of values traditionally associated more singularly with public space. But the way these particular ‘events’ shape the image and meaning of public space, and the manner in which the design of public space provides opportunities for participation and appropriation, remains understudied. Exploring this interaction implies broadening the concept of public space itself: the intertwinement of design and politics in socio-spatial dialectics and the role of new media in co-producing the image and meaning of public space. In this regard, this article contributes by presenting relevant theoretical analysis and empirical investigations of the ‘long march’ and the reincarnation of the ‘forecourt’ of the Pakistani nation. The ‘long march’ is a peculiar phenomenon in Pakistani politics. From a broader historical perspective, the term ‘long march’ is usually understood as the phenomenon that began the ascent to power of Mao Zedong during the communist revolution in China (1934–36).10 From then on, the term has acquired a meaning that broadly denotes mobilization of the masses for political change. In the Pakistani context, its history is in parallel with that of the restoration of democracy since the 1990s.11 Used mostly as a mobiliz- ing instrument by opposition parties to pressurize the government to gain quasi-political objectives, it has also been accredited with deepening the political and democratic process. Most recently, the long march was deployed by lawyers in the Justice Movement to oust the military General Musharraf in 2008. As such, the long march now symbolizes the ‘agency for change’ in the Pakistani political consciousness.12 From a spatial perspective, the physical locus of the long march usually oscillates between three specific public spaces in three cities: the ‘Jinnah 126 IJIA 2.1_Khan_125-156.indd 126 2/18/13 6:38:34 PM On Design and Politics of Co-producing Public Space Mausoleum’ square and park in Karachi; the ‘Minar-e-Pakistan’ square and park in Lahore; and the ‘Parliament Square’ in the capital Islamabad. The first two often serve as the staging point and the last one as the culminat- ing point of the long march. There is a rather fascinating and untold story behind this appropriation of these three public spaces by the long marches. These places are the physical manifestation of a specific idea: the ‘forecourt of the Pakistani nation’ – a politically charged design slogan incorporated in the 1952 design proposal for Karachi’s new capital complex by the Swedish firm MRV. In this conceptualization, new modern monuments and spaces would be produced to serve as tangible and reproducible icons of the emergent nation. Despite the fact that this proposal was not immediately implemented, less than a decade later four international architects were commissioned by the autocratic regime of Ayub Khan (who ruled between 1958–69) to mate- rialize the same idea in these three locations. They were constructed simul- taneously during the 1960s.13 Over the years, the image of these three public spaces remained as passive instruments of state representation seeking political legitimacy, largely ceremonial, and symbolizing a patriotic gaze that hardly went further than evoking a bygone era. In Lefebvrian terminology, they were the epitome of ‘abstract’ spaces.14 But this perception began to change radi- cally with the unfolding of the long march phenomenon that gradually turned them into political ‘spaces of appearance’.15 This article analyses the spatiality of the long marches and unravels the ways in which they transformed the ‘image’ and ‘publicness’ of these three public spaces. Next to a specifically developed theoretical framework for such analysis, it is based on primary archival material, historical documents and contemporary discourse related to the three public spaces and the story of the long march. In these analyses, I address the following questions. What is the role of these public spaces and the long march in redefining the idea of ‘the forecourt’ of the nation? What is the role of design, and embodied ‘sensorial experiences’ characteristic of these spaces that motivate individuals to participate? How have the long marches appropriated these spaces that led to the transformation of their images? I pay particular attention to the design of these spaces in order to reflect upon the contemporary urban design discourse and argue that social processes and spatial forms co-define each other while producing and remak- ing the image and meaning of public space. Understanding Public Space: A Theoretical Overview In its traditional conception, public space is seen as a ‘realm of the collective’ that is dichotomous to the ‘realm of the private’ household or individual.16 Understanding public space in this sense implies understanding the concept of ‘public life’ that is inseparable from the idea of a ‘public sphere’ and the notion of ‘civil society’, where the affairs of the public are discussed and debated in public places.17 However, both the public and private realms are implicated in the production of space. In addition, public space is a layered concept that does not easily shed earlier meanings associated with it, despite having changed over time. This is particularly true from a western historical perspective, where the concept of public space is seen as a realm where democracy is ‘worked out’, and offering an arena for a rising class faction to articulate itself against the dominant system, e.g. the eighteenth-century feudal state.18 Such a view undergirds the modern discourse, such as Hannah Arendt’s analysis (1958) of the ancient

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