The year was 1988, the place, Seoul, Korea, where the Asian Congress of Architects was taking place. Attending the Congress were a delegation of architects and their spouses from Pakistan. As the deliberations went on, another vision was taking shape, that of an Art and Architecture School for Karachi.Two separate groups had been thinking about the need for an institution of excellence, one in the field of architecture, the other in art and design. Ideas, thoughts, ideals were shared, the common thread being the urgent need of the city for such an institution.Architects Arshad Abdulla and Javaid Haider had earlier worked on the feasibility for an architecture school, to go beyond what the existing institutions had to offer. At the same time, a group of the alumni of the Central Institute of Art and Crafts (CIAC), who had been engaged in an effort to revitalize the ailing institute, had been frustrated by resistance from the CIAC Board of Governors. It was Professors Zahoor Ul Akhlaque and Iqbal Hassan who advised the group to abandon its futile attempts to save the CIAC and divert its energies towards creating a new institution of Art.