By Rafiq Vayani
KARACHI: The traveling exhibition: “Cities on Stage. Urban Regeneration: the Italian way to a sustainable future”, opens on 12.02.2026 by Consulate of Italy in Karachi at the Quaid e Azam Flag Staff House, which is a house museum dedicated to the personal life of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan.
The house was designed by British architect Moses Somake and was built in the fading year of the 19th century.
Cities on Stage around the world is Sponsored by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, organized by: Ance, Associazione Mecenate 90 ETS, and Fondazione Musica per Roma, brings abroad, around the world, the experiences of urban regeneration in Italy, gathered by the Città in Scena Festival.
Indeed, recent years in Italy have been characterized by a great and widespread focus on urban regeneration processes.
Thanks in part to the resources of Next Generation EU and other national public measures, this has become the most widespread practice for managing environmental, energy, and social transitions and limiting land use.
This has been achieved by reclaiming abandoned spaces and buildings in both the suburbs and historic centres, redirecting them toward new functions related to the needs of local communities.
The exhibition has a twofold objective: on the one hand, to account for this extraordinary vitality in design and construction that exists in our country and is significantly transforming Italian cities from north to south; on the other, to illustrate, through a series of significant examples, the variety of solutions adopted, which demonstrate the broad and widespread conceptual, design, technological, and construction capabilities that have developed enormously in Italy in recent years, since 2023 becoming one of the best and most significant expressions of Made in Italy.
A presentation on ‘Regeneration. The Italian Way to a sustainable Future’ was delivered by Dr. Marco D’Egidio, Senior Technology Officer from ANCE, which was followed by a panel discussion with the following esteemed panellist:
Dr. Tania Ali Soomro, Assistant Professor at NED University of Engineering and Technology; Mr. Salman Jawed, Coalesce Design Studios; Ms. Mehreen Gondal, Founder & Lead Interior Designer at Ocean Design Studio; Mr. Mustafa Iqbal, Sustainability Expert.
The discussion was moderated by the President of Italian Development Committee, Mr. Aarij Iqbal, who all have come together with the Consulate of Italy to showcase Italian excellence in Karachi.
The Exhibition highlights the best practices of urban regeneration developed in Italy and promotes the skills and technologies in the design of urban spaces, buildings and housing of Italian public administrations, businesses, and designers.
A clear example of the new concept in construction and beyond, to be extended to all sectors, aimed at saving raw materials but above all at the use and recovery of materials already used, so as to optimize them for a specific purpose: A cleaner world that does not produce or at least limits waste and scrap materials.
