STONES OF BRITISH COLONIAL LAHORE: A STUDY OF TWO REMARKABLE BUILDINGS OF EARLIER PERIOD OF BRITISH COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE

Abstract

Among many milestones of British Raj in Lahore, the Lawrence and Montgomery Halls, presently known as Quad-e- Azam Library are the master pieces of earlier period of architecture in Lahore which were constructed with the subscriptions of British and Indian communities of the Punjab, as memorial in the honor of two European commanders of British Indian Empire. These buildings have been greatly surviving for the last 149 years and still hold prominent position in building stock of Lahore. To find out the reasons behind the longer survival of these remarkable British colonial buildings in Lahore, this paper explores the architectural design, structural scheme, adaptive reuses and the main driving forces behind the origin of Lawrence and Montgomery Halls. The paper concludes that flexibility in architectural planning, structural stability and acceptance of building form are not the only areas which keep the major architectural and structural intervention away from the buildings but suitable selection of adaptive reuses related to the original functions of the building can also play a vital role in survival of older buildings.