ARCHITECTURE (THE VANISHING MASONS)

THE VANISHING MASONS 

By: Nasser Yousaf 

Men working as stone masons could no more be found at will in the hilly areas.There are not many of them left as people have switched over either to the kilns-baked bricks or the easiest mode of construction in which cement blocks are used. Riaz, as seen in the pictures above, is one of the few surviving masons sought by the few people who are still fascinated by the old style of construction. 

One could cite many reasons for this change over but the foremost remains the astronomical increase in the size of population during the last about two decades. This new mode of construction has also changed the mountainscapes. In what were previously regarded as hill stations where the affluents would make themselves large colonial style bungalows with thick stone walls and slanted rooftops made of corrugated iron there now appears little to distinguish the hills from the urban sprawls elsewhere. People complaining of the rising temperatures in the hills are loathe to realizing that the heat affecting them is owing in no small measures due to the new facile mode of construction.