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DECONSTRUCTING
BEIRUT'S RECONSTRUCTION: 1990 - 2000 Coming to Terms with the Colonial Heritage An essay on a public lecture presented by Robert Saliba at Darat al-Funun, Amman on April 19, 2000. --continued-- MODERNIZING HERITAGE Saliba moved on to discuss two approaches towards preservation. The first is that of preserving the urban fabric, i.e. the pattern of streets, parcels, and buildings, and the second is emphasizing the preservation of the buildings themselves. In the case of the reconstruction of the Beirut Central District, the French Mandate section was preserved both as urban fabric and as buildings. On the other hand, the Saifi and Wadi abu-Jamil areas were preserved as street pattern, while their parcels and buildings were partially modified. In the final result, about 20% of the central business district was preserved in terms of urban fabric and buildings. When dealing with the preservation of an urban fabric, one needs to address three dialectical relationships. The first is that of "above versus below;" where the main issue is urban archaeology versus underground parking. The second is that of "inside versus outside," where the main issue is historic public frontages versus modernized interiors. The third is that of "the existing versus the potential," where the main issue is the existing development versus vertical or horizontal extension of construction. In the area of the Solidere project, religious buildings were mostly preserved from both the inside and outside. The exteriors of public buildings - such as the parliament and municipality buildings - were kept, and the interiors were partially modernized. However, the Grand Serail, a late Ottoman structure, was vertically extended through the addition of a new floor. Also, the inside was completely rebuilt according to modern standards, thus reducing the original building to a mere envelope in which new elements are placed. Although the new modifications are both imposing and well executed, a number of the elements added to the main elevation, such as the dormers on the red tile roof, jeopardized the original character of the building, especially for those who had memories of the Grand Serail from before the war. Preservation from outside and modernization from within was applied to the majority of office buildings in the conservation area. This usually included the integration of elevators and other modern necessities, and the adoption of flexible open plans (figure 8). Outside the central district area, another recent example where a similar strategy was applied is College Hall at the American University of Beirut. This prominent campus building was completely reconstituted from the outside and rebuilt from within incorporating the latest modern necessities. Another category that Saliba addressed is that of infill buildings, where one is presented with two solutions. The first is to create a "neo-historical" structure that emulates surrounding buildings, and the second is to develop a contemporary design that adapts to the scale of the surrounding context, but not necessarily to its architectural character. Saliba noted that both solutions have been adopted in the Solidere project. An example of the first approach is found in the Saifi area, where one is presented with "neo-traditional" infill architecture (figure 9). Saliba qualifies these buildings as pastiche architecture, where one often comes across contradictions between plans and elevations. Here, the designers wished to maintain the symmetrical central hall elevation characteristic of the traditional Beiruti house, which did not correspond to the building's modern plan, and therefore residual spaces resulted from this arrangement. An example of the second approach is found at the intersection of Weygand and Allenby streets, where an infill corner building continues the arcade alignment of one of the streets but exhibits a glass wall along the other street. Concerning the duality between above and below, Saliba cited the example of the Suq Tawilah area (figure 10). Here, parking areas were needed for the modern shopping mall to be constructed at the location of the late Ottoman suqs. The result is what Saliba identified as "skin-deep historicism," where the late Ottoman street pattern was recreated over the concrete slab of the parking structure. Saliba deduced that we are presented with a wide range of responses to the issue of heritage conservation. In the case of Beirut, there is a considerable difference between the generally high standards reached by Solidere in its conservation area, and the cheap face-lifting solutions being implemented in the peri-center districts. Of course, attempting to apply such quality control on the scale of the city would be difficult to realize because of financial and technical complications. Saliba added that the experience of the reconstruction process has been an extremely rich one. Over the past ten years, those observing or involved in such projects have had to revise their own assumptions about reconstruction, preservation, and the ideological positions underlying the notion of heritage. In this context, Saliba mentioned the remarks made by the AUB architectural faculty member, Marwan Ghandour, who commented that the architectural discourse in post-colonial societies is fundamentally attempting different ways of interpreting or identifying what can be viewed as an authentic local identity. In this discourse, traditional buildings are the principle narrators of that identity (7). Ghandour denounces the futility of such attempts, which view history as consisting of two opposite forces, the eras of pre-modernization and post-modernization, both of which are connected to the process of colonization. With this, Saliba concluded by stating that in the case of the reconstruction of Beirut, we see a clear example of the incorporation of the colonial legacy into national heritage. To Saliba, this leads to the conclusion that maybe we are coming to terms with our "hybrid personalities," thus transcending the duality between the authentic and the colonial in favor of a "new authenticity." |
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