By Ar. Sahar Saqlain | Photographs Courtesy Architect
ARCHI TIMES (AT): What made you choose architecture as a profession?
Ghayoor Obaid (GO): Ever since the 1965 war, I fancied the fighter pilots and my only goal then was to join Pakistan Air Force. But luckily during a hockey game at PAF School Lower Topa, I realized that subordination and discipline beyond a limit was not my cup of tea. After completing my studies I came back to Lahore. At that time my first cousin Adnan was in the final year of architecture at the National College of Arts. He used to take me along to the college. He showed me how to do lettering on the drawing sheets so that I could take up that part of his drafting work. This experience was just the opposite of what I had been through at the boarding school. The students used to carry out the work all through the night and sleep during the day. No theme was taboo and no discussion uncalled for. This was quite an intense exposure that concluded things for me and I joined NCA in 1975.
We were a joint family and I was the eldest among the young. My elders wanted me to be either a doctor or an engineer. The first couple of years were tough but then I made the move and left home which gave me a great sense of freedom and opportunity to focus.
AT: Tell us about your professional education & life at NCA?
GO: Life at NCA was like living within another joint family. We were all sorts and all across. Differences and diversity were something to explore and celebrate. The population and the size of the premises were just perfect for this kind of intermingling. The faculty is comprised of teachers from all walks of life. Kamil Khan Mumtaz was our design teacher and the head of the architecture department, Shoaib Hashmi taught us economics, Dr. Durre taught us sociology & Salima and Saeed Akhter took our drawing classes. Over the years we were blessed to have had teachers like Baba Najam, who held half his lectures at the college canteen to impart his environmental vision, and Ali Akbar, who challenged our strengths by confiding in us his weaknesses.
During the summer break after the first year at NCA, I started working at Chishti Brothers, an architectural consultancy firm in Lahore. I worked there throughout my student life for almost five years. It helped me financially & also in gaining experience of construction & detailing.
Ours was the class in which half of the students were working & by the 3rd year had bought our own motorbikes which was quite a big deal then. We used to work for around 5 hours a day after college time. With the permission of our employers, we used to do our college assignments within the office premises for the final submissions. This gave us a great opportunity to discuss our assignments with professionals of various allied fields.
AT: How was your early professional work experience?
GO: Working at Chishti Brothers was my first professional work experience. In fact, we were three students from the same class who were there. One of us would be designing, one would be sketching & I, being more interested in detailing & design development would be busy with that. This made the three of us a complete package. Although unintentionally, it was good that I did not get into designing then, because when you are young, getting influenced by the vocabulary of the architectural office you are working for, can be negative in realizing and recognizing your own creative niche.
Right after graduating from NCA, I & my friend Khalid started working as freelancers. Our first experience was with a consultancy firm named Unicon. There we handled a housing competition project from design till its final presentation. We were fresh and enthusiastic and put all our efforts into that competition project which Unicon won.
Soon after that Khalid left Pakistan and moved to the US. Then I teamed up with Anjum, our third colleague at Chishti Brothers, and started to build an independent base. But my heart was not in it and I wanted to go away and leave the country. The Afghan war was on and life was quite suffocating. It was Zia’s time. Reacting to the situation and the prevalent anti-soviet sentiment, I sold my motorbike & bought a ticket for the USSR where I had enrolled for my masters’ course. Since no one was allowed to go to the Soviet embassy in Islamabad those days, I first had to go to Sri Lanka to get a visa. Among other interesting events in the transit there, I also met my future wife. After three week’s ordeal, I did manage to get into the USSR. I was sent to the University of Kyiv where I first got into the language course. It was a very intense firsthand experience of that society and despite the tough living conditions I thoroughly enjoyed my stay which lasted only seven months. I did not see any merit in completing my master’s there which required another two years to complete. I moved on to Germany which became my second home, where I got married, learned the language and its modern culture. However, I could not get back into architecture so I experienced it only as an outsider which in itself was something very valuable. I had never intended to stay away from Pakistan and as the political situation improved I decided to move back. I joined Shaukat Nawaz Raja at Ritz consultants and made my return to architecture after 3 years. One year of intense work with Mr. Shaukat was enough to get me going again.
AT: Were there any challenges that you faced in starting your own firm or was it a smooth sail?
GO: In 1986 I was asked by a young family to design a house for them. They right away liked what I had proposed. The requirement of a fast-paced construction and my relative inexperience of project management demanded my full-time involvement, so I left the job and fully devoted myself to this project. The house got built in a year’s time leaving me as a jobless architect. My client was convinced that instead of seeking a job I should think of setting my own setup since the new clients were about to knock at my door. He was right. I got a lot of clients from my very first project. I felt that I was rushed into it by my circumstances; otherwise, I had plans to work for architects like Kamil Khan Mumtaz, Baba Najam, and Nayyar Ali Dada before setting up my own practice.
AT: What is architecture to you?
GO: In the context of your question, it must be what we as architects perceive, pass by, and arrive at in a deliberate pursuit. To me, It’s the process and the product at the same time. What is realized is only one aspect that right after its birth carries the process further. So to me, life and architecture are the same.
AT: What projects have you found the most challenging in your career to date and why?
GO: My first independent project, by luck, was an instant success, but what followed posed a bigger challenge. Later I realized that the projects themselves were less of a challenge than the conditions in which we operate and the mindset of the client. Actually, the best part of architectural practice is the design process, which is like meditation to me. It is what follows a design that requires a lot of patience. I believe for a project to succeed, the three C’s I-e: Client, Consultant & the Contractor have to be on the same page and function like a team. Many times the constraints were such that in my own eyes I failed. There are a few projects that I would rather not own. But then I take refuge in the knowledge that the worst is part of the greater good. ‘Girte hain shahsawar hi maidan e jang mein, woh tifl kya girainge jo ghutno kay bal chalein.’
Through the process and the product, success and the failure, the architect keeps building and testing his peculiar vocabulary. Alphabets & a variety of words lead to making his very own sentences that after a while start making some sense.
