Heading through the dust and haze towards the city, the scene is dominated by traffic or more accurately, so many motorcycles, agricultural carts drawn by donkeys introduce a new dynamic, each flatbed cart drawn by a single donkey quite often laden with fresh fruit and about five children probably aged six to eleven, others are laden with steel bars quite often driven by single man or more likely a teenager who is constantly talking on the mobile phone.
The road becomes wider and supported on concrete legs and the urban scene is made up of industrial facilities partly obscured by the morning haze as vapour rises from the dense belts trees that line the roadside. Concrete construction is everywhere, a group of young men standing in the middle of the road one working one watching and the other waving his arms around as if to direct the traffic around the part of the road is being worked on. In UK this will involve a whole lane being closed for miles and Bahrain it would result in two. As the flyovers snake their way of what is left of the urban realm another heavy concrete structure with slow moving Bendy-Bus absolutely jammed with people moves along the top of it. Ahead is what appears to be a Railway station, with platforms, signals, and bridges that span the traffic, the bus lane is fenced off from the road, this is the Lahore Metro, a transit system that still under construction, with too few buses to constitute a rapid transit system creating urban devastation is wake.
The whole scene begs the question wouldn’t it be easier to have created a bus lane along the existing road as opposed to constructing such a heavy barrier that divides the city? To be fair is not only the Metro line that divides the city, it is the combination with all the lanes of traffic moving alongside it and the associated concrete flyovers and demolition to accommodate it that is causing the devastation looking something like pictures of the Walsall Road in the 1960s. The irony being that Birmingham has spent the last twenty-five years trying to undo the damage caused by the Manzoni plan, and here in Lahore they’re building it is though it’s a new innovation. The elevated road takes the severe turn to the left and passes over the British attempts to introduce an efficient transport system and connect the peoples world whether they wanted it or not, from this vantage, the railway passes through a wide clearing lined by trees disappearing into the haze of the distance. Passing alongside the railway, it looks relatively modern, with overhead electric catenary but seemingly devoid of trains, with people wandering across the tracks while others bump motorcycles over them, to avoid driving round and fighting through the traffic trying to squeeze through a two lane level crossing, what appeared as a belt of trees from a distance is punctuated by a collection of ramshackle buildings, concrete frame, brick infill, built right up to the edge of the railway.
The roadside is a colourful spectacle of fresh fruit on carts with the donkey patiently waiting while business is conducted behind. All manner of vehicles stop, causing chaos as others swerve to avoid them, so that the drivers, passengers join the informal market beside the road to purchase wares from an array of carts and single-storey shops situated beneath tall trees. Ladies elegantly perched on the back of the motorcycles, dressed in brightly coloured fabrics add to the vibrance of the scene. The central median of the road to wide area of grass this numerous people seated in the shade of trees surrounded by flowerbeds. This is the ultimate tree-lined boulevard only something is missing there’re no grand buildings fronting onto it, the Kot Lakhpat Railway station is understated, identifiable only by sign pointing to a narrow alley between two of the single storey retail units situated beneath the trees.
The back story is available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble published by Xlibris — Do We Need ARCHITECTS? A Journey Beneath the Surface of Architecture - See more at: https://scriggler.com/DetailPost/Story/23491#sthash.lNVVNj3E.dpuf
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