Share Our Heritage with the World

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It is a chimney's tale. Perhaps it is a non story of a chimney in which the smokestack plays no part. It did play a role, mind you, when it was constructed in the 1920s. Today, it is just there, with a kind of a monkey ladder to climb it, trying to touch the sky. But the Karachi skyline is smeared with smoke of some other kind, a form of air pollution caused by automotive emissions. And the chimney, the poor old chimney, has nothing to do with it. However, if you are in the neighbourhood, you will definitely notice it.

Get to the D. J. Science College. Two roads fork out from where the college exists. One leads to Burnes Road and the other to the Pakistan Chowk region. If you are on the side which takes you to Burnes Road where the D. J. College building ends, you will see another stone structure joined at its rear end with a chimney standing aloft in the right corner. Take the road connecting the two sides of the D. J. College and in the middle you will see the entrance gate to the NED University (old campus) Department of Architecture and Planning. Surrounded by blocks of (bossed) Gizri stone, with nice portals and rectangular windows, the overall ambience of the place is one of seriousness that is in this day and age not often seen at our educational institutions. The place is not overly-crammed with students. After all, it is the architecture and planning department, and the students are aware of the architectural worth (that's akin to its historical value) of the institution.

The chimney is unique, like none other in Karachi. It has survived although. It does not have a functional value any longer. Its landmark and historic significance will always be discussed. And you never know if you will see it around for another hundred years.

In one of the spacious studios some students have put up a sheet on a wall on which they have sketched a blind contour. It is worth having a look at. A blind contour drawing is made in a continual and firm way without lifting the pencil; the idea is to keep it natural. There's certain artistry about it. It's nothing like the different blocks of the NED old campus. However, for some inexplicable reason the sketch has an appeal that appears to pay tribute to creativity… and to the creativity of all those architects who designed magnificent works of stonemasonry /in Karachi, keeping it natural. Stratchen, Somake, Wittet et al…

[Source: Karachi Legacies of Empires by Peerzada Salman]

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