RELOCATION OF NUSSERWANJEE BUILDING
It used to be in the heart of old Karachi, but now the Nusserwanjee Building stands not far from Karachi’s sea edge. This is the miracle of South Asia’s very first building-relocation project. One can’t but marvel at the idea that this century-old stone structure, which is in two blocks of three and four storeys with large halls and high ceilings, is at the campus of the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture. The very first step in the relocation effort was through documentation of the building, which was carried out by detailed measured drawings and photographs. Then, considering the seismic zone of Karachi and the fact that the soil stratum at the new site near the sea was a reclaimed sandy beach as opposed to the firm land at the original location, some special measures were introduced. The decision to introduce iron columns was an innovative one as these now support the floor slabs for all four floors, including the mezzanine. Detailed identification of all the material was done and each stone, piece of timber etc., properly marked prior to the dismantling which commenced in April 1995, stone by stone, piece by piece, and completed within three months.
The procedure involved the careful removal of each piece of timber and stone which was then tagged permanently for identification, carried to the ground floor, stacked temporarily, loaded on the trucks for transportation to the Clifton site, unloaded and re-arranged according to a given layout. Only 50 stones having being broken or damaged out of the 26,000 that were retrieved.
In my opinion, the method described above is costly and tedious because removing building stone by stone, loading it and then transporting it will take more time and more labor. Rather we can push the building on temporary rails if the distance is short. Otherwise, wheels, such as flatbed trucks