The recent restoration of Nusserwanjee Building in Karachi with a grant of USD 140,000 (PKR 2.61 crores, INR 1.07 crores) from the US Ambassador’s Fund for Cultural Preservation and US Consulate General brought back memories of the edifice. A write-up in the March 2022 issue of What’s On, the newsletter of the Karachi Zarthosti Banu Mandal, recapitulated the history of the building "originally constructed in 1903 by Nusserwanjee Rustomji Mehta, father of our beloved mayor Jamshed Mehta (regarded as ‘the maker of modern Karachi’), as the warehouse and offices of Nusserwanjee and Company which was a very prosperous trading and manufacturing enterprise of its time.”
Nusserwanjee Building in Kharadar (l) and after its relocation to the
Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture in Karachi
In 1991, it was decided to relocate the Nusserwanjee Building from Kharadar locality to the Indus Valley School (IVS) of Art and Architecture campus in Clifton, a project described as "the biggest stone by stone relocation project in the subcontinent.” After interviewing several well-known firms of architects, the IVS trustees finally assigned the work of dismantling the Building and transporting the stone bricks to a Balochi family who had considerable experience as construction workers.
"The able and hardy Balochis marked each and every brick with a number denoting its location before carefully dismantling the Building. The bricks were carefully transported in trucks and camel carts to the new location… This made it easier for the firm entrusted with the reconstruction to replicate the Building. As a family member and trustee of the Hommie and Jamshed Nusserwanjee Charitable Trust, also known as Mehta Trust, which had donated generously towards the project, I was among the few invited to lay the cornerstone of the new School at an impressive ceremony,” Jehanbux Mehta was quoted by What’s On.
Years later when Jehanbux was given a tour of the new Building that houses studios of different departments and the IVS Gallery, he admitted his "heart beat fast as I saw the memorable winding staircase, walked over the same wooden floors (no longer creaking), visited the spacious classrooms that once were offices and stared fixedly at the frightful (cargo) lift (with iron grill doors).”
With the School’s proximity to the Arabian Sea, there was deterioration in the stone façade of the Building which required preservation and restoration work that was undertaken by the Sindh Exploration and Adventure Society (SEAS) in 2021 and its completion marked with an event on January 31, 2022, as reported in the Karachi daily Dawn the next day. Speaking on the occasion, the US consul general in Karachi Mark Stroh said he viewed the restored landmark as being "representative of Karachi’s pluralistic, religious and cultural roots.” He further mentioned that the Ambassador’s Fund for Cultural Preservation supports all types of cultural heritage including historic buildings, archeological sites and other forms of traditional expression since they mean so much more than just bricks and mortar; they strengthen and inspire communities. Since 2001, the US has reportedly awarded more than $ 6.4 million (PKR 119.23 crores, INR 48.94 crores) for cultural heritage projects in Pakistan with the Nusserwanjee Building being its third project in Sindh.