An article by the Associated Press of Pakistan which was published in major English dailies last week listed a host of shortcomings of the capital city, chief of which was that it did not have a notable landmark. Hailing London for its tube system, Venice for its canals and gondolas, New York City for its Statue of Liberty and Kuala Lumpur for its Petronas Twin Towers, the article pointed out the lack of any such well-known and recognized landmark for Islamabad.
A landmark is a thing with historic, social, cultural, architectural or aesthetic significance to a city or a nation. It is a thing which people identify a city or nation.
Based on this definition, major cities in Pakistan, including the federal capital, do have landmarks. Lahore has the Minar-i-Pakistan, Karachi has the Quaid-i-Azam's mausoleum, and Islamabad the Faisal Mosque. It is a different thing altogether that these landmarks are hardly recognized beyond Pakistan's borders.
The K-2 is one landmark which has put Pakistan on the map of world fame, but this natural landmark, like its competitor, Mount Everest in Nepal, is not the ordinary traveller's cup of tea. No doubt K-2 provided the inspiration and the setting for the Hollywood movie, Vertical Limit, but the latter did not become a blockbuster like The Entrapment, which featured Malaysia's Petronas Twin Towers.
Most of the famous man-made landmarks in the world are old ones that have been there for decades, if not centuries. However, two modern landmarks that have only been completed within the last decade but which have shot their Muslim states to instant fame are the Petronas Twin Towers of Malaysia and the Burj Al Arab (The Arabian Tower) of Dubai, one of the seven kingdoms of the United Arab Emirates. A closer look at how the idea of these two landmarks were conceived may give us an insight into how to go about building a similar kind of landmark that would make the world associate Pakistan with.
The masterminds behind the Petronas Twin Towers - named after Malaysia's oil company which has its headquarters in one of the towers - were a Malaysian business tycoon T. Ananda Krishnan and former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad. The charismatic politician wanted a building on a site in the heart of the capital that would be identifiably Malaysian, that was of world class standard, and which Malaysians could be proud off.
When the Petronas project, developed as part of the Kuala Lumpur City Centre (KLCC) project, was on the drawing board in 1991, the twin towers were supposed to be distinctive and unique but there was no plan to upstage the then tallest building in the world, the Sears Tower in Chicago.
Story has it that one day in 1994 when construction was already well under way, a question was casually put to the architect by Dr Mahathir: How many more metres would it take for the Petronas Twin Towers to get the tallest building in the world tag? It was back to the drawing boards and after some frantic mathematical recalculations, it was deemed possible.
Upon completion in 1997 at the cost of $1.2 billion, the Petronas Twin Towers quickly became a Malaysian cultural icon, symbolizing Malaysia's soaring economic success and ability. Images of the Petronas Twin Towers began popping up in the most unlikely places like a Made-in-Japan jigsaw puzzle and the back of a London bus. The hit movie, The Entrapment, starring Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones, in which the distinctly unique Petronas provided the setting, had also helped to make this Malaysian building world famous.
Petronas became a landmark not only because it was the tallest building in the world (it held this title for about seven years before it was upstaged in 2003 by the Taipei 101 building in the capital of Taiwan), but more so because of its unique architectural features. It is a striking combination of glass and steel with floor plans based on an eight-pointed star, a geometric principle typified in Islamic architecture.
The design's piece de resistance is the 58 metre-long double decker skybridge at the 41st and 42nd floor. The bridge was not only meant to serve the functional purpose of facilitating human traffic between the two towers, it also symbolized the gateway to Malaysia's Vision 2020.
The Burj Al Arab hotel in Dubai, with its unique billowing sail-shaped structure is symbolic of the kingdom's desire to be a leader in tourism and financial development. With its oil and gas reserves running out, Dubai embarked on a flamboyant and ultra modern multi-million-dollar project to establish itself as a leading tourist/vacation destination and offshore financial centre.
The crown prince of Dubai had wanted not just a hotel but a signature building; one that would announce "Welcome to Dubai". He wanted a dramatic statement with imagery that would immediately conjure up images of the city, in much the same way the Opera House does for Sydney and the Eiffel Tower does for Paris.
Within six years from the initial presentation of the design, the building was completed and fully fitted for operation by the beginning of 2000. Burj Al Arab become a landmark because it is the tallest, largest and most luxurious hotel in the world, possessing a strikingly modern architectural design, an extravagantly opulent interior design where everything that glitters is really gold, and most significant of all, a sophisticated multiple state-of-the-art technology in management that has earned the Burj Al Arab the status of the first seven-star hotel in the world.
After the Burj Al Arab, Dubai has come up with another iconic development, namely, The Palm, the largest man-made island in the world which is shaped like a palm tree. This luxurious resort has been described as the eighth wonder of the world and is said to be visible from the moon.
Based on Malaysia and Dubai's experience, the major ingredients for building an international famed landmark are a charismatic leadership, an inspirational economic vision, loads of money, and ability. Do we have this winning combination to deliver a landmark in Islamabad that would become a Pakistani icon? After all, if parliamentary as well as sheikhdom Muslim states like Malaysia and Dubai can do it, why not Pakistan? Provided we can get rid of the terrorism tag first.
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