Stand at the entrance to Faisalabad’s Kutchery Bazaar and you could be forgiven for thinking you had stumbled on to a film set.

Decorative lamp-posts cast amber pools of light across newly paved walkways. Freshly painted façades glow in warm floodlights. Faisalabad’s famous Clock Tower — a colonial landmark at the hub of eight radiating bazaars and locally known as ghanta ghar — presides over it all, looking considerably more photogenic than before.

The transformation, completed in May this year, has been a social media sensation. Videos shared by Gen Z visitors routinely rack up hundreds of thousands of views. The government has invested approximately Rs360 million in the beautification of Kutchery Bazaar and the Clock Tower alone, with plans to extend the project to Jhang Bazaar, Aminpur Bazaar and the remaining five bazaars in the city in subsequent phases. By any superficial measure, it is a success.

But step off the main thoroughfare. Duck through a side entrance. Look upward at the Zail Ghar — one of the bazaar’s most storied colonial buildings, a striking two-storey red-brick structure known for its turrets and minaret-like architectural features — and the picture changes.

The front façade has been freshly painted; old windows have been replaced with decorative wooden-style balconies. Yet the rear of the building tells another story entirely. Its structural framework is deteriorating and the staircases are damaged. Its verandas, rooms and roof remain in a state of advanced dilapidation. Only the face visible to the camera has been treated. The rest has been left to quietly collapse.

Fresh paint, decorative balconies and glowing floodlights have transformed Faisalabad’s historic core. But behind the Instagram-friendly makeover lie crumbling buildings, neglected landmarks and a growing debate over whether the city is actually preserving its heritage…

Fresh paint, decorative balconies and glowing floodlights have transformed Faisalabad’s historic core. But behind the Instagram-friendly makeover lie crumbling buildings, neglected landmarks and a growing debate over whether the city is actually preserving its heritage…

The Zail Ghar was constructed in 1918, when the city was still known as Lyallpur — named after Sir James Broadwood Lyall, the lieutenant governor of Punjab who oversaw its planned development.

Local journalist Zikerullah Hasani explains that its upper-floor rooms once........

© Dawn (Magazines)