Yasmeen Lari

Yasmeen Lari (born c. 1941; Urdu: یاسمین لاری‎) is Pakistan's first female architect. She is best known for her involvement in the intersection of architecture and social justice. Since her official retirement from architectural practice in 2000, her UN-recognized NGO Heritage Foundation Pakistan has been taking on humanitarian relief work as well as historical conversation projects in rural villages all around Pakistan.

Yasmeen Lari was born in the town of Dera Ghazi Khan and spent her early years in and around Lahore. Her father Zafarul Ahsan, an ICS officer, was working on major development projects in Lahore and other cities, through which Lari was exposed to architecture. Her sister is Pakistani politician Nasreen Jalil. When she was 15 years old, she first left Pakistan to go to London with her family. Initially there for a vacation, she and her siblings ended up enrolling in school in London. Upon her rejection from architecture school, Yasmeen Lari studied two years of arts in London before being accepted into the Oxford School of Architecture.

After graduating from the Oxford School of Architecture in 1964, Lari returned to Pakistan at 23 with her husband, Suhail Zaheer Lari, and opened her architecture firm Lari Associates in Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan. She became the first female architect in Pakistan. Initially, she faced difficulties when workers at construction sites would challenge her authority or knowledge because of her gender.

In 1969, Lari became an elected Member of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA).

Her later projects included housing, such as the Angoori Bagh Housing (ABH) (1978), and commercial buildings, such as the Taj Mahal Hotel (1981), the Finance and Trade Center (1989), and the Pakistan State Oil House (PSO Company headquarters) (1991) in Karachi.

Lari retired in 2000 from architectural practice. However, she remains active with her historical preservation by serving as the advisor of the UNESCO project, as the executive director of Heritage Foundation Pakistan, and as the chairperson of the Karavan Initiatives.

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