Kabul Hotel - Ramesh Khosla

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Up from the ashes A Montreal architect is helping to transform the
crumbling downtown wreck that is the Kabul Hotel into a sumptuous
palace in the heart of Afghanistan

Source: GAM - Globe & Mail

Apr 1, 2003 7:59

Page: R4
Section: The Globe Review
Edition: National
Byline: VICTORIA BURNETT

KABUL
When the World Trade Center came crashing down on Sept. 11, 2001,
Ramesh Khosla was devastated. It wasn't just the human loss that was
unbearable for the Montreal-based architect, but the loss of two mighty towers that he had helped design. So when he was approached last May about rebuilding a hotel in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, whose Taliban regime had harboured planners of the New York attacks, he felt fate had played a hand.

"It was almost! a God-given gift," says Khosla. "It was compensation
for having seen something I created destroyed, to then have the opportunity to build this." During the 1970s, Khosla, an Indian who is senior partner at the Montreal-based architecture firm, Arcop, worked for
years on the Trade Center's sky lobbies and the warren of shopping
arcades and passageways at the foot of the towers. He tries not to
think about the destruction -- it is simply "too depressing."

With Khosla's creative input and an investment of about $26- million
(U.S.), the Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development (AKFED)is
transforming the crumbling, downtown wreck that is the Kabul Hotel into
a sumptuous palace. The 110-room, five-star hotel will open its doors
in the fall, and mark a major step in the city's efforts to rebuild.
"It's an incredibly expensive project," said Ali Mawji, representative
in Afghanistan of the Aga Khan Development Network, of which AKFED is
the economic-development arm. "It'll be a signal that a serious private
investor is willing to make a significant investment in Kabul." It is
also a challenging project. The original hotel was a featureless,
Soviet-era building that had "no cultural value," says Khosla. Now,
years of vicious civil war have taken their toll on the hotel. The
lobby is a dusty heap of rubble and fallen beams and doorways that once led to guest rooms. Khosla and the contractors are working in a tough
environment, with collapsed infrastructure, few local suppliers and a
work force that has had little construction >experience in 23 years of
war. "It's a fairly ambitious undertaking as far as Kabul goes right
now," says Khosla, who plans to breathe new life into the hotel by
adding a highly decorative interior with a "strong, local cultural"
flavour and a new lattice-effect outer wall, or jalli. As a reflection
of Afghanistan's rich artistic heritage, rooms will be decorated using
artefacts from different regions and tribes.

AKFED plans to add over 70 new rooms, plus a coffee pavilion, health
club and a Mogul-style garden. The street that currently houses the
crushed facade of the hotel and Afghanistan's central bank will be
closed to traffic and turned into a pedestrian promenade. Amir
Mohammed Fasilyar, the hotel's former beverage manager, remembers the whirl of weddings, parties and concerts that kept him busy when he
started his career there 30 years ago cleaning rooms. "It was a
beautiful hotel," he says. "It was full of tourists."

The hotel has since seen its share of Kabul's violent history. In
1979, U.S. Ambassador Adolph Dubs died in a hail of bullets in a room
there during an apparent rescue attempt after his kidnapping. In
1996, the lobby of the hotel and several rooms were turned into stores to
house the remnants of the Kabul Museum's collection of art and
artifacts decimated by looting during four years of savage factional fighting that had reduced much of Kabul to ruins.

The new Kabul Serena Hotel, as it will be called, is not the only sign
of revival in Kabul's hotel and restaurant industry. A handful of new
restaurants followed close behind the swarm of international aid
workers, diplomats and journalists that descended upon Kabul after the
Taliban was ousted at the end of 2001. Diners in the city can choose
between Indian and Chinese food, and pizza, or stop in for cappuccino
at the new Mustafa Cafe, housed in a guesthouse of the same name run by an Afghan from New Jersey. Currently, though, accommodation options are limited to guest houses -- either privately run or administered by aid agencies for their staff -- and the Intercontinental Hotel, a
featureless building perched on a hillside overlooking Kabul. A popular
hub for meetings as well as diners, the Intercontinental is also
getting a facelift. In October, the Dubai-based Al Yuqoub group bought a
15-year lease for the hotel, pledging to invest $8-million in improvements over 15 months to bring it to a five-star level. Polished floors, a busy
Internet cafe and live music in the restaurant signal initial improvements, and John Anjum, the ovial general manager, plans to add two restaurants -- one Indian and one Chinese -- and renovate the bar,
gym and swimming pool. The 200 rooms are about three-quarters occupied, with guests paying about $70 a night.

There are also plans for a big hotel opposite the American embassy.
The prospective investors from the United States and Turkey are in talks
with Hyatt about managing the hotel, and are reportedly close to a
deal.

For Khosla, meanwhile, the Afghan project cannot bring back his beloved
buildings, but it can help heal the wounds inflicted on New York and
Kabul. "It's a redeeming process: that something was destroyed and
another thing comes up," he says. "It's a great morale booster."