Radical Resistance or Active Agency - The Case of Korangi Town

Abstract

This paper explores the idea of housing the masses as a modernist agenda of social reform, starting from two key notions that are related to both the World Wars: the concept of postcolonial nation building and the need for accommodating refugees through resettlement projects. The mass housing schemes were presented as universal solutions by the developed West to the under-developed South during the inter- and postwar era. This research posits that the modernist approach of architecture and planning aspired to fix the problems through the ‘normalization’ of the physical space to reorganize society. For this purpose, the case of a particular post-World War II refugee resettlement project of mass housing — Korangi Town in Karachi, Pakistan — has been examined.

The project has existed for more than half a century now. It has not only become a part of the urban fabric in this region but also has changed overtime, through users’ own efforts and forces outside the professions of architecture and planning. A morphological analysis of land use and building typology is conducted. From the analysis, it is concluded that the alterations reflect the reaction of the residents to the planning objectives and can be seen as forms of resilience of active agents. This study adds to the literature on the subject, especially to the critique on modernist planning and architecture, that mostly portrays the communities for whom the projects were designed, as passive recipients of the urban visions imposed upon them from outside.