Hyderabad, Sindh

Hyderabad, Sindh, southern Pakistan; not Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, south India. Images from Bernard Rudofsky, Architecture without Architects, New York, Museum of Modern Art, 1964: windscoops (called bad-gir by Rudofsky, müg by Wikipedia) on the roofs of buildings, which channel air into their interiors.

From April to June the temperature in Hyderabad can exceed 50° C, but the wind always blows from the same direction, so the position of the windscoops is fixed. Rudofsky: “In multistoried houses they reach all the way down, doubling as intramural telephones. Although the origin of this contraption is unknown, it has been in use for at least five hundred years.” I suppose modern air-conditioners, punched into the buildings’ walls, have replaced them – but soon afterwards satellite dishes will have taken their place on the roof.

Hyderabad is less than a hundred years older than Sindh’s young capital, Karachi (though there had been settlements on the site previously). It was founded in 1768 by the Sindhi Kalhora dynasty, which ruled Sindh for much of the eighteenth century, as the Mughals lost control over Pakistan. They were succeeded there in 1783 by the Baluch Talpur tribe, who ruled until the British conquered Sindh in 1843 – when Napier is reported to have sent a telegram of one word to the Governor General of India, Peccavi (I have sinned). The Sikh wars in the Punjab began soon afterwards.

Hyderabad in the nineteenth century, Wikipedia