About IAPEX Conference
Introduction to the Conference 2012 Theme
Building Bridges
"Looking into each globe, you see a blue city, the model of a different Fedora. These are the forms the city could have taken if, for one reason or another, it had not become what we see today. In every age someone, looking at Fedora as it was, imagined a way of making it the ideal city, but while he constructed his miniature model, Fedora was already no longer the same as before, and what had until yesterday a possible future became only a toy in a glass globe."
- Invisible Cities by Italo Galvino, Published 1972
Karachi, a bustling city; where over 15 million people co-exist in the midst of visions and dreams of Planners, Architects, philanthropists, bureaucrats, city administrators, professionals etc. All of them over the years have been at times working together or in isolation to build and to improve our beloved city and most importantly fill in the gaps left by the governmental institutions. Cities like Karachi are strewn all over the globe. The time has surely come to share our experiences in a melting pot of diaspora; to reach out to a wider community with positive impacts. It is imperative for the younger generation to be aware of the making of a city. Its history, the foot prints of stake holders and their impacts which results in the creation of cities in general.
As architects we are the visionaries that put together complex environments which make up cities. Sociological, geographical, economical, environmental and engineering perspectives are some facets that are assessed to realize a built environment and architects inherently rely greatly on other allied consultants to formulate designs. This fact has been taken a step forward in this year’s IAPEX 2012 theme of “Building Bridges”. We are reaching out to the larger community of engineers, interior designers, artists, crafts people, philanthropists, visionaries and the manufacturing industry to participate in the Expo and share their efforts in making the cities and the built environment and ultimately Pakistan more vibrant and prosperous.
The outreach of the conference maybe limited to professionals and students related to the building industry but our intentions and the message hopefully will go beyond the confined borders of the profession. Today an architect is not only found on the drafting table but is out in the field managing disaster affected areas with the local community, rehabilitating with sustainable local solutions. Now the profession has come of age; where the glamour in architecture has been reduced to earth, energy and environment solution. We have chartered a new course in this ever evolving world of dispersed humanity; the second half of the past century has seen immense globalization where so many "bridges" have already been built and crossed. It is now time to localize the phenomenon of the ever widening horizon of architecture and design and form cohesive directions for a more sustainable living pattern.
Ar. Syed Zaigham S. Jaffery
Ar. Moyena Niazi
