Before derelict heritage turns to dust, Karachi needs a history lesson

Heritage Walk Karachi “Walking Through Old Town Saddar”

Walking into the past with Heritage Walk Karachi

On a sunny Sunday morning, I walked through the streets of Karachi's old town area to trace the colonial remnants of the city's architecture.

Stepping back in time: A heritage walk through Karachi’s architectural splendor

Afflicted with human virus, Karachi’s forgotten heritage needs urgent attention

Kol, Mum, Karachi architects meet on Insta, discuss history and heritage

Kolkata: Kolkata, Karachi and Mumbai were nerve centres of trade and commerce in pre-partition India but the similarity between the three bustling metropoles…

Why Karachi needs Community Spaces?

Tour de’ Karachi/Heritage Walk Karachi

Tour De' Karachi [as part of Tour De' Pakistan] is a series of PhotoWalks which invites local content creators and camera enthusiasts (photography/ videography) to bunch together, shoot…

Photographers celebrated historical streets of Karachi

We were preparing for our 6th Photowalk of the series Tour’De’Karachi the next day when the lockdown in Karachi was officially announced due to the growing pandemic.

Fast forward to yesterday, 27th of September 2020, the pandemic is not over and still a high-risk factor across the world. Miraculously and luckily, in Pakistan, the novel…

Pakistan Chowk - Documentary Film

A neglected public square in the historic Arambagh neighbourhood of Karachi, Pakistan gets a much needed makeover. The rehabilitation of Pakistan Chowk was initiated as a personal project of Sharmila Faruqi, politician and MPA (Sitara-e-Imtiaz). Born and raised in Karachi, Sharmila wanted to give something back to the city and it’s people. This was a labour of love…

Pakistan Chowk Community Centre: a social urban experiment

Pakistan Chowk is a landmark heritage site in District South, Karachi and is central to the Old Town. The Chowk was previously utilized as a literary space, where people assembled to exchange conversations about literature, mainly in the forms of mushairas, baithaks…

Pakistan Chowk documentary heads to Mexico & Sweden

We can continue to make prolific yet mind boggling commercial films perhaps in a bid to make big moolah on the box office as Bollywood remains banned but its filmmakers like Kamal Khan, Jawad Sharif and just recently Mahera Omar, who are giving Pakistani films…

R&D Blog - Pakistan Chowk Community Centre in Birmingham

A team from the Pakistan Chowk Community Centre (PCCC), consisting of Ms. Marvi Mazhar (Founder and Creative Head) and Ms. Marium Hanif (Project Manager) travelled to Birmingham UK in March 2019, to participate in the…

Heritage Walk Karachi

On Sunday 6th January, 2019, Pakistan Chowk Community Centre (PCCC) celebrated its first anniversary at Heritage Walk Karachi (HWK). Ms. Shaheen Nauman, Project Coordinator of Heritage Walk Karachi, has been conducting walking tours in Old Town for locals every Sunday morning for a year. The aim of the project is to empower people to protect and nurture…

Documentary film Pakistan Chowk premiers in Turkey

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Chowk, a documentary film by Mahera Omar, had its world premiere at the 12th Istanbul International Architecture and Urban Films Festival, says a press release received here today from Ankara, Turkey…

City Walk – Heritage Walk with PCCC

One of the things people reminisce the most about yesteryear Karachi is the luxury to walk its streets freely. It’s not just the mental block since some of us don’t have an option but to walk. The new localities in Karachi lack infrastructure such as footpaths, zebra crossing…

Exploring Old Town Karachi

KARACHI: History buffs, lovers of art and architecture, and a few young souls wanting to learn more about the city’s rich cultural and architectural heritage, gathered at Pakistan Chowk early on Sunday morning to take a walk through the surrounding mohalla…

Heritage Walk

Old buildings, new perspectives. Team Soch explores Karachi with Pakistan Chowk Community Centre…

Centre of Revival

The Pakistan Chowk Community Centre (PCCC) is the perfect example of making the most out of what you have — and then some. Located no more than 20 feet away from Pakistan Chowk, on the first floor of the Sultani Mehal building, the Chowk was meant to…

A walk to remember in Karachi

Moving to a new city can be quite daunting as you learn to navigate your way across different areas. But moving to a city you are already very familiar with is a completely different scenario. The main reason is that you begin to start taking things for granted…

This community centre in Saddar aims to unite a neglected neighbourhood

There’s a dire need to revive the arts in Karachi’s design-rich, historical Old Town, “the hub of printing presses” as heritage conservationist and architect Marvi Mazhar puts it.

The Karachi-based activist is the face of the newly-inaugurated Pakistan Chowk Community Centre…

Pakistan Chowk: Restoring the glory of a neglected heritage site

The iconic Pakistan Chowk which oozes history but now wears a derelict look is soon to be developed into a heritage site with the inauguration of a community centre which will include the community in the upkeep and the projection of the historical importance of the place. The project aims at restoring the features that speakers reminisced about so nostalgically…

Pakistan Chowk Community Centre opens doors to public

KARACHI:“We are here to celebrate 70 years and to understand the importance of a space which will provide community engagement, advancement of arts and culture, and democratic and literary discourse in Old Town.

Keeping the Flame Alight

April 24 of 2016 will bring us to Sabeen Mehmood’s first death anniversary. The brutal murder of the creator/director of T2F — a prominent personality at many forums — left a loss felt deeply by civil…

City Culture – Subhan Nizami Qawwal at Pakistan Chowk

The Qawwali at Pakistan Chowk was a fantastic experience. Subhan Nizami is one of the finest Qawwals in the city and Pakistan Chowk has turned out to be a vibrant public space since its restoration. The combination guaranteed to entertain and engage the audience, a lot of which were from the area. It would not have been easy. Romanticizing public spaces is one thing…

QAVVALI AT THE CHOWK

It was an unusual experience, in a good way. The Pakistan Chowk Community Centre (PCCC) on Saturday evening organised a qavvali performance by Subhan Ahmed Nizami at the chowk…

A breath of fresh air: Pakistan Chowk gets a marvelous makeover

KARACHI: The six-month Rehabilitation Project of Pakistan Chowk has transformed the entire area for the better, with benches placed, outdoor lights set up and plantation added, much to the delight of the public....

Review - Pakistan Chowk Community Centre

With its low floorboards, doors swung open, and cramped space (forcing us to see each other), the space was somehow allowing for easy conversation. It felt like the very design of its walls, the shade of blue, was put here to facilitate intimacy...