Kitschy Kabul wedding cake: An influx of money and the removal of the Taliban has led to a mushrooming of ugly, postmodern architecture

Kabul is a city of dramatic contrasts. In the streets, shiny black-windowed limousines drive alongside scruffy pushcarts with wobbly wheels. On the sidewalks, one-legged beggars hold out hands to well-dressed businessmen in sharp suits and gleaming shoes. Perhaps little of this is particularly exceptional in urban areas around the world, including in Southasia. More to the point in the Afghan context is the contrast in the inner city between Western female diplomats being driven around in armoured vehicles, and the local ladies who are fully covered in azure burqas.

In the built environment, too, these contradictions seem almost endless. The luxurious, fully air-conditioned Serena Hotel is surrounded by mud houses in a state of decay. The dedicated gardeners of the newly-restored Babur garden busily clip every blade of grass by hand, while in a nearby gutter the stinking carcass of a dog that did not survive the frosty winter slowly disintegrates. One startling new contrast is between the dusty, pitted roads and the development of massive new mansions, each of which bears an odd resemblance to an ostentatious wedding cake. What on earth is this new style of dwelling?