Pictured here is Greek architect-engineer and town planner Dr. Constantinos Apostolou Doxiadis (1913-1975) presenting his first ideas for the Master Plan of Islamabad. Karachi had started out as the capital of Pakistan but the government at the time thought that the port city did not have “a satisfactory solution from points of view of climate, tradition and the existing buildings, which were not adequate in number or to the standards required by a capital,” as Doxiadis put it in a paper. It also had a refugee problem. Ayub Khan set up a special commission chaired by CGS Yahya Khan in 1959 and subsequently Ayub named Dr Doxiadis as advisor on the location of the capital. He suggested two areas: one outside Karachi and the other to the north of Rawalpindi. Ayub decided in favour of the latter on the Potwar Plateau.

Doxiadis Associates were later entrusted with the design of the new capital. On February 24, 1960 it was named Islamabad (the City of Islam) and the Capital Development Authority took over from the Federal-Capital Commission to get the job done. The city was planned for a future population of about 2,500,000 inhabitants within a period of two generations.

Doxiadis planned generous public spaces around the mountains, hillocks, plain and ravines. His aim was to use an urban agro-farm model that would keep the city connected with nature. Four highways formed axes and a big square for the grid. n