The PickleIn development

A capital drawn before it existed

Islamabad, 1960 onwards. The plan and the city are two different objects, and holding them apart is what makes the comparison mean anything.

This one is not open yet, and we would rather say so.

The research is done and published below. What is outstanding is the evidence and rights package: until every item can be shown with its own permission and citation, there is nothing here to enter. The record stands on its own in the meantime.

Be told when it opens — one line, no digest.

The premise

How did a planned capital move from intention on paper to a physical city, and where did later growth extend beyond the early planned footprint? The entry would place planning material beside observed material, with every state labelled planned or observed.

Lane
The Pickle · Virasat
Place
Islamabad, Rawalpindi
Subject
Urban planning, Architecture, Comparison
Record published
Status
Evidence and rights open

The reconstruction

Planned. A drawing is evidence of intention and of the reasoning behind it. It is the strongest possible source for what was wanted, and no source at all for what happened.

Discrete states, not a slider

The evidence is discrete — a plan, a site visit, a satellite pass — so the comparison would move between named states rather than interpolating between them. Synthetic annual precision is not available and would not be invented.

What has to close before this opens

Publication permission for the planning material, high-resolution supply, and identified satellite keyframes. Until those are settled, no planned state can be presented as a record of what was built.

Nearby in the archive

  • Warmly lit painted walls and arched windows inside a historic Pakistani monument.

    Experience

    Engineering the Indus

    Sukkur Barrage, 1924–1927. The barrage is the monument; the evidence that survives is mostly of everything around it.

  • The same corner building photographed later, its ground floor occupied by bank and phone-brand shopfronts.

    Experience

    The corner

    The same wooden-balconied corner building, photographed twice. Move between the frames and the difference is entirely in the ground floor.

  • A portable Bluetooth speaker on the same crocheted doily and stack of books, beside a wall calendar open at April.

    Experience

    The shelf

    One shelf, two frames, and a calendar in each that reads April 1978 and April 2024.