Yasmeen Lari

Yasmeen Lari (born c. 1941, Urdu: یاسمین لاری) is the first woman architect in Pakistan. Motivated by her father, she set her goal to study architecture. Throughout her career, she experienced challenges from the opposite sex in the industry but was still able to uphold her interests and expand on it. Her influence reaches to the citizens, the businessmen, and the Pakistani government.

Early life

Sister of renowned politician Nasreen Jalil, Yasmeen Lari was born in the town of Dera Ghazi Khan and spent her early years in and around Pakistan’s bustling city, Lahore. Her father was working on major development projects in Lahore and other cities. Yasmeen Lari was exposed to architecture through her father.

She was 15 years old when 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 the rejection of the architecture school for not being able to draw, Yasmeen Lari studied two years of arts in London before finally getting accepted to Oxford School of Architecture.

While still in school in London, Yasmeen was married to Suhail Zaheer Lari and about a year later gave birth to their first daughter.

Career

After graduation, in 1964, at the age of 23, Yasmeen Lari returned to Pakistan with her husband and opened Lari Associates in Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan. Yasmeen Lari became the first female architect among the dozen architects in Pakistan. In the beginning years,...
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