Javeed Najm was born on 10 March 1939, in Lahore. In an interview before he died, in 2017, he recalls how he "was a product of partition. We were originally from Lahore, and I was six when we migrated from Simla back to Lahore. So I saw the killings. Aagain lag rahi hain. Jal raha hai. Shah alami jal raha hai (neighbourhoods were put on Fire, Shah Alami was burning). We would get on the roof top and count the fires." He received secondary education from the Government Central Model School in Lahore and in 1956 he enrolled at Government College of Engineering and Technology, before later that year moving to the Pakistan Military Academy, Abbottabad, where he graduated in 1958. Instead of pursuing a military commission, Najm returned to Lahore and attended the National College of Arts and Architecture between 1960–1962 as part of its first cohort of architecture students. Immediately after graduating, Najm moved to the UK to join the Architectural Association (AA), studying there over three separate periods from 1962–1964, 1965–1966, and 1967–1968. After completing his second year at the AA, he followed the common advice of tutors to take a year out of studies and improve his technical abilities through professional experience. After resuming his AA studies, he would subsequently take another year out, following the passing of his mother in 1967. For his final year at the AA, Najm joined the Department of Development and Tropical Studies, his thesis being a housing project for Islamabad. Alongside his studies, Najm appears to have worked within the Housing Section of the Department of Architecture, London Borough of Bromley. Following his return to Pakistan in the late 1960s, Najm practised privately in Lahore, where he maintained a studio in the basement of his Gulberg Main Boulevard residence. He also taught at his alma mater, the National College of Arts and Architecture, serving as Associate Professor from 1971 to 1989, influencing a generation of Pakistani architects and contributing to the post-independence development of architectural education. Although there is limited public documentation of Najm’s professional practice in Pakistan and no confirmed list of built works, a local news article described him as “among the senior-most architects in Lahore.” Najm passed away in 2017, in Lahore.
Sources:
- Architectural Association. Architectural Association Student Register 1945–1972. London: AA Archives.
- Architectural Association. Department of Tropical Architecture, Student Listing, Otto Koenigsberger Collection, Box OK27. London: AA Archives.
- Architectural Association Archives. AA Internal Records: Student Correspondence, Assessments, and Extension Letters, 1962–1969.
- National College of Arts Archives. Personal File of Javed Najam, Associate Professor, 1971–1989. Lahore: NCA Archives.
- Tarar, Suljuk Mustansar. “Pioneer of Modernism.” The Friday Times, January 20, 2017. Accessed June 27, 2025. https://www.thefridaytimes.com/20-Jan-2017/pioneer-of-modernism
- Tarar, Suljuk Mustansar. “Lahore’s Master Builders.” The Friday Times, November 24, 2017. Accessed July 3, 2025. https://www.thefridaytimes.com/24-Nov-2017/lahore-s-master-builders
- Ezdi, R. "Javeed Najm", Daachi Nama, April 2018, Vol. 7, p23
