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book: Master Plans and Encroachments
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Master Plans and Encroachments

The Architecture of Informality in Islamabad
Language: English
Published/Copyright: 2023

About this book

Among urban designers and municipal officials, the term encroachment is defined as a deviation from the official master plan. But in cities today, such informal modifications to the urban fabric are deeply enmeshed with formal planning procedures. Master Plans and Encroachments examines informality in the high-modernist city of Islamabad as a strategic conformity to official schemes and regulations rather than as a deviation from them.

For the new administrative capital of Pakistan designed in 1959 by Greek architect and planner Constantinos A. Doxiadis, Islamabad’s master plan offers a clear template of formal urban design within which informal spaces and processes have been articulated. Drawing on deep archival research, wide-ranging interviews, and an array of visual material, including photographs, maps, and architectural drawings, Faiza Moatasim shows how Islamabad’s master plan is not simply a blueprint that guides future urban development or makes its violations apparent; it is used by both city officials and citizens to develop informal spaces that accommodate unfulfilled needs and desires of those living and working in the city.

Master Plans and Encroachments is the first book that examines the informal practices of both the privileged and the underprivileged. The book highlights how low-, middle-, and upper-income people do not randomly build informal spaces; they strategically use architectural techniques to support their informal claims to space, which are often met with the government’s tacit approval. By focusing on those spaces in Islamabad’s urban fabric that are not part of its official master plan, the book demonstrates how planning actually works in complex ways.

Author / Editor information

Contributor: Faiza Moatasim

Faiza Moatasim is Assistant Professor of Architecture in Urbanism and Urban Design at the
School of Architecture, University of Southern California.

Reviews

"Faiza Moatasim’s insightful mapping of Islamabad establishes that the modern city and its architecture are not synonymous and cannot contain a single meaning. In her analysis, the usual binaries dissolve and form fluid protocols employed both by the elite and marginalized in unintended and often unanticipated ways. Master Plans and Encroachments constructs a robust foundation for establishing a theoretical framework for understanding the on-the-ground realities of emerging urbanism in multiple geographies." --- "Master Plans and Encroachments offers a rich account of the history of development of a planned modernist city, which unlike its counterparts—Brasilia and Chandigarh—is relatively unknown to Western audiences. Faiza Moatasim details a fascinating story about Islamabad’s design and its transformations through informal urbanism that will appeal to architects, planners, urban designers, historians, and others interested in the development of cities."

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    Frontmatter

    i
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    CONTENTS

    vii
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    LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

    ix
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    A NOTE ON TRANSLITERATION AND TRANSLATION

    xiii
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    Introduction: Making Master Plans and Encroachments

    1
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    CHAPTER 1 Model Villages in a Modern City

    22
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    CHAPTER 2 Ordinary Informality

    52
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    CHAPTER 3 Long-Term Temporariness

    90
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    CHAPTER 4 Elite Informality

    123
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    CHAPTER 5 Non-conforming Uses

    153
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    Conclusion: Contingent Plans

    181
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    NOTES

    189
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    BIBLIOGRAPHY

    209
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    INDEX

    223
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    ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

    231
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Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
December 12, 2023
eBook ISBN:
9781512825190
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
View content
https://doi.org/10.9783/9781512825190
eBook ISBN: 9781512825190
Keywords for this book
1950s; aesthetics; architecture; blueprint; business; capital; city cities; Constantinos A. Doxiadis; development; Elite; Encroachment; forms; Global South; governance; homes; informal spaces; Informality; interiors; Islamabad; law; layout; maps; master plan; modernism; negotiation; Pakistan; Pakistan; photographs; Plan; privilege; regulations; stalls; street vendors; technique; twentieth century; urban studies
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