Kabul is a city of dramatic contrasts. In the streets, shiny black-windowed limousines drive alongside scruffy pushcarts with wobbly wheels. On the sidewalks, one-legged beggars hold out hands to well-dressed businessmen in sharp suits and gleaming shoes. Perhaps little of this is particularly exceptional in urban areas around the world, including in Southasia. More to the point in the Afghan context is the contrast in the inner city between Western female diplomats being driven around in armoured vehicles, and the local ladies who are fully covered in azure burqas.
In the built environment, too, these contradictions seem almost endless. The luxurious, fully air-conditioned Serena Hotel is surrounded by mud houses in a state of decay. The dedicated gardeners of the newly-restored Babur garden busily clip every blade of grass by hand, while in a nearby gutter the stinking carcass of a dog that did not survive the frosty winter slowly disintegrates. One startling new contrast is between the dusty, pitted roads and the development of massive new mansions, each of which bears an odd resemblance to an ostentatious wedding cake. What on earth is this new style of dwelling?
In Kabul, the paradigmatic example of this new style is a 300 x 600 metre area between Sherpur and Wazir Akbar Khan. This area is popularly known as 'Little Pakistan', in direct reference to a style of house that was commonly built in Peshawar during the 1990s. For centuries, this plot of land was part of the finely woven agricultural fabric surrounding Kabul. It was only in 2003 that the traditional mud houses, small pieces of farmland and a historical garden were all bulldozed. Land-grabbers took over and now, just five years later, more than 130 'mini-palaces' have been constructed, each slotted right next to its neighbours. Another 20 or so are still under construction.
They certainly are a sight to behold. Classical Roman columns with Greek Ionic capitals float smoothly into an ocean of balconies and cantilevers of poor-quality concrete. The outer walls are clad with flamboyant materials such as mirrored or coloured bathroom tiles, which often compete with highly reflective coloured glazing. With 'curly-wurly' balustrades all around, the thoroughly un-Afghan balconies and other plastered bits of wedding cake are painted in a colour range that seems to come straight out of a candy shop. But as ludicrous as these eye-popping new homes may appear at first, they also offer an important insight into a development process that is, fortunately or unfortunately, uniquely Kabuli.