Lahore: A Framework for Urban Conservation: Greater Lahore and The Walled City

This first part "Greater Lahore and the Walled City" contains four sections: 

Khan, Masood. "Lahore: The City in History". Lahore: A Framework for Urban Conservation, edited by Philip Jodidio, 35-52. Munich: Prestel, 2019.

This section presents the history of Lahore, an important city of the Islamic world, from early archaeological past to the grandeur of the Mughal emperors in the context of the Walled City and the Lahore Fort.

Khan, Masood. "Lahore's Walled City". Lahore: A Framework for Urban Conservation, edited by Philip Jodidio, 53-60. Munich: Prestel, 2019.

An area of high-density urban fabric in the north-western part of Lahore, the Walled City is at the core of the cultural and economic energies of Lahore. This historic fabric is home to many monumental artefacts, large and small mosques, temples, squares and gates. However, the Walled City has many challenges. Demographics have fallen from a Mughal city of 500,000 inhabitants reduced in a hundred years to just 50,000 people. Access to and arrival at the Walled City continues to be problematic due to chaotic and heavy traffic and difficulty of finding adequate parking space.

Khan, Masood. "The Architectural Heritage of Lahore". Lahore: A Framework for Urban Conservation, edited by Philip Jodidio, 61-72. Munich: Prestel, 2019.

An analysis of the architectural heritage of Lahore runs chronologically in the period before Islam to the predominant historic Muslim-period architecture belonging to the period of the first six Mughal emperors (1526 to 1707), making of the city a pre-eminently Mughal city. Many gardens were also built on the left bank of the Ravi River, which the most significant is the famed Shalimar. After presenting the Sikh developments, the description finally pays tribute to the early British period.

Dar, Saifur Rahman. "Mughal Gardens in Lahore: A Historical Perspective". Lahore: A Framework for Urban Conservation, edited by Philip Jodidio, 73-91. Munich: Prestel, 2019.

The remaining Mughal gardens in Lahore are poignant reminders of a brilliant era of building gardens with characteristics attributed to a single dynasty. Hailing from Central Asia, the Mughals and the nobility of their courts who built these gardens combined the Central Asian/Timurid, Iranian and Indian garden traditions. Among all the gardens of Lahore, Shalimar Garden, a walled and terraced garden, is by far the most refined and complete Mughal garden that has survived.

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Source: Aga Khan Trust for Culture

Greater Lahore and the Walled City. In Lahore: A Framework for Urban Conservation, edited by Philip Jodidio, 32-91. Munich: Prestel, 2019.