Reviving Culture and Art as Advocacy to Democratic Activism
Edwin Seng Yong Wei 1001746759 1
Future Vision of Beirut
Beirut the Gem of Middle East
Institute of Cultual Activism
Decentralized City of Beirut Port
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Beirut, the Hidden Gem of Middle East
Beirut, once considered the Hidden Gem of Middle East, blossoming with its people, diversity, culture, and even its nightlife was something many would come to enjoy. The streets filled with varieties of delicacies, enveloped by the creativity of artist, expressing their feelings and ideals to the walls of its buildings. All its beauty stripped away when the once prospering city collapse into poverty. International bank investors pulled out from Lebanon’s bank amidst the Syrian Civil War crisis, losing their trust and putting Lebanon into debt. The incompetence of the government’s effort in mismanaging the funds given to them, plunged them deeper into a paradoxical cycle of debt depending on one another. Failures continue to progress, basic services only given to the disenfranchised in return of their loyalty, trash left in streets, food and medicine become scarce, privacy challenged by the instalment of 2000 surveillance cameras around the city, and basic taxes on Whatsapp. The Lebanese was resilience against the odds, but not until the Beirut Port blast, the catalyst for change.
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Beirut Economic Bank Crisis Study A study was conducted on the histories of crisises to better understand the current context of Beirut and the root of every issue which heavily ties back to the political system and the bank loan system which tied themselves a cycle of paradoxical interests that none had put to good use.
1969
1975
1976
1982
1989
Tension in Sectarian Power
Civil War
Syria Invasion
Israel Invasion
War End Taif Agreement
The Lebanon Civil war broke out
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Syria started invading Lebanon.
Followed by Israel
The gentrification of Beirut has also led to a displacement of artist community and leaving behind a lack of public space, thus reduce one of the requirement for a democratic spaces in Beirut.
2011
2015
Syria Civil War
People Discontent with Government
2017
2019
2020
Central Bank Failture
Beirut Blast
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The Crisis of Beirut
The Demonstrations
The NGO Aid 8
The Social Media Cryouts The people are left to fend on their own, helping one another recover from the blast, NGOs doing their best to help the affected all while no government officials has aided the Beirutese. Fed up, the streets are now overtaken by the people, protests breaking out with the unity of the different religions, demanding for a change. Streets and spaces under bridges are being reclaimed by the people as simple as placing a single plastic chair or creative artist vandalising the walls with their street arts. Marginalized communities are now working together, religion and status put aside to make a change. While they try to bring justice to their lost loved ones in the blast, voicing out against the leaders, the action has been responded with military oppression. Tear gas fired at vulnerable protestors in the chaos of a damaged streets. High profile anti-Hezbollah shot dead, whistleblowers facing judiciary action on them. Newer and younger political party forms but rejected by the officials, called in for questioning by authorities. The subjugation of free speech has prevented the people from making necessary progress in reforming the politics. Beirutese are forced to hide within shady zones, unseen by the public to live collectively, social gatherings and educational spaces are within constricted space between buildings. The existence of democracy has gone, criticism seen as an offensive act, transparency between the people and government is unseeable and these people know it. Their determination is high seeing the power of democracy taking place, but is it enough to reform the political system in Lebanon?
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Source: Protest and Public Space: Rituals of Democracy in the City by Dr Nurul Azreen Azlan ASLA 2020 Urban Design Honor award. Yongqing Fang Alleyways: An Urban Transformation. Guangzhou, China. Lah D+H Landscape and Urban Design. Image Courtesy of The Dirt https://www.archdaily.com/964940/new-research-the-built-environment-impacts-our-health-and-happiness-more-than-we-know
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In the lights of events happening in Beirut, one might question the role of an architect in responding to the built environment of such a place. Especially regarding the port, one of the main key operations in Beirut, isolated within itself with all its once-beautiful city surrounding it. In a place where free speech is oppressed, can an architect create a space corresponding with the revolution made by the people? A safe haven for the oppressed to have their political discussion? A point of interest for media to capture the message trying to be heard? Or whether the architect decides to ignore all situations to produce beautifully rendered city to impress the clients, looking for a profitable outcome? Then again, inspiration has formed itself within the actions made by the people in the form of culture, nightlife, street arts, and street reclamation all done to revolutionize the city. Night clubs are places where marginalized society are equalized, becoming another medium of safe haven for opposition and protests. It was done in Venice against the accessibility of cruise ship in the city, why not here? Art and culture have become mediums for the advocacy of political ideals, spread around as an alternative out of rallies, a way to be secured and be seen to the world. Social medias then take the next role of spreading its current issues. Activist using Instagram or Facebook to connect internationally for support going directly to them. Can such a space be created to advocate for all these needs?
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The Future Vision: Reimagining a City of Beirutese
Reimagining for the People | Revolution
The abstraction envisions the the 3 current states of Beirut reflecting the past, present, and future. The past reflects the current status of Beirut, a gem that has lost most of its value in rise of numerous humanitarian crisis and major issues throughout the country. The next phase indicates the starting steps of changing a community in respond of the current revolution in Beirut. Art and culture has become a prominent figure in this as it becomes the new medium of democratic speech amongst the people of Beirut. Basic needs would be addressed as well, how can Beirutese recover from their current state and sustain themselves without a functioning government? Thus approach when this community stabilized, a future where technological advancement combined
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themselves in the new mechanism of lifestyle and cultural embrace to further bring people together internationally and further spreads the voice of the people to be constantly heard without the fear of oppression.
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Beirut’s Crisis - Social Disparity 14
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Crisis Street Reclamation
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Lebanon’s Crisis The drawing aims to capture the main crisis faced by the Beirutese under corrupted sectarian politicians and the disparities between social working classes. The people suffers under the oppresion of the government, worsen by its severe neoliberalist economy, basic services are not accessible by the community. The people faces humanitarian crisis while the top social class and politicians enjoy a life of luxury. The people grew tired of being resilient, starts to adapt with living in poverty, helps one another only through community aid. The people has never been as close as it is now. It is up to them to fend for themselves.
Social Hierarchy Military Oppression
Having reduced to mere survival instincts, prominent culture and art of Beirut is further scarce and unprioritized while intellectual spaces starts to form through activists and street reclamations.
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The Beginning - Addressing Basic Needs 18
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Permeable Fortification Living
Cooking Workshop and Garden
Festivities | Free Market
Informal Educational
Soft City Living
Night Life Culture
Reimplementing Art and Culture in Context of Revolution
Art Workshops
With the community undergoing a social reform, many have changed their mindsets to be more accepting and opened with one another, helping one another as form of activism. This became a stepping stone for political change among the people. With societal psychology, people’s behaviour are affected by circumstances surrounding them. To better create a space that advocates for further change, intellectual and democratic approach of the people: culture, art, education, and politics becomes the core idea in nurturing societal reform while reviving the hidden gem of Beirut to Middle East. These values ties well together with the port as an international gateway and its port access, improving not only social living standard and political reform, but also addressing the potential economical exploits Beirutese can have, eg. Port Festival.
Addressing Basic Needs Proposal of programmes looks into the requirement of basic services required by the community to live and to be productive. Self sustaning becomes a key important in generating one’s own food, electricity, etc. Upon fulfilling this needs, the next step to bring about the culture and art back to Beirut’s Port, integrate it within the function of the port and the current activist movements, using it to commemorate the events and crisis in Beirut as well as medium for intellectual discussion.
New Exports through Art
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Decentralized Cultural Democratic Activism 22
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Reimplementing Art and Culture in Context of Revolution Upon succeeding in self sustaining community, the port city itself has become its own micronation, isolated from the government’s system. Creating its own system, the new city could capitalized in its art and cultural aspects, using technological intervention to further develop its productivity. Automated cranes that changes the city fabrics, delivery system, spatial quality affecting drones, and VR - Robot Technology paved ways for international involvements and easier community lifestyle as well as looking in new ways to maintain their own currency in the form of crypto. As central bank fails to keep up with their money banking, crypto becomes a possibilities to store money. Where crypto-mining is energy heavy and not eco-friendly in a long run, Crypto Art in NFT minting could be another environmental friendly way to boost its economy while developing the art culture of Beirutese
Advanced Technological Connection International Workstation
Crypto Art NFT Minting 24
Advanced Permeable Wall City
Multiground Micronation | CommunityGoverned Area
Commemorable Sculpture | Common Space | Festivities | Democratic 25
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Decentralized City of Beirut Port Deriving from the abstraction, the new masterplanning of the new port city would heavily focus on the revolutionary context and value of Beirut’s culture. Art and night clubs would play a prominent role as well as democratic activism. Before starting the designing process, the masterplan uses 9 urban strategic tools to ensure the city is designed with the best interest of Beirutese people.
NGO + Communal Ready Booth Facilities With the vulnerability of the people exposed to all kinds of threat, while performing demonstrations and intellectual discussion, spaces holding these communal activities should be accomodated by facilities readily accessed in case any tragedy occurs. Emergency response can immediately be taken.
Permeable Boundary Breaking the initial port design of isolation and tall buildings, the new port will feature a permeable boundary that assimiliates the city zoning into the port city zoning, blending the boundary for all comunity to interact with one another.
Reclamation of Public Spaces Inspired by the people’s revolution of reclaiming public space with furnitures, the city will allow for dispersed buildings to be allocated at main parks to reclaim public spaces for the people while maintaining a level of dense zoning within the people. While maintaining building’s function, public spaces and activities are opened up.
Flexibility and Communal Growth The new city will feature individual buildings in each blocks that allows for change, reuse, and renewal to happen in different levels over time, which creates a higher social and economic diversity to exist over longer periods. While increasing its sustainability, extension are encouraged for its city growth.
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Sustainable Infrastructure Beirut being very car-centric contributes to the amount of carbon release in the atmosphere. To respond to that, the port city will encourage greener accesibility through public transport, pedestrian, and bicycle friendly infrastructure while limiting the entry of private vehicles.
Climate Response In response to global warming and rising sea level, patches of mini forest are proposed in between sea and land that works as a carbon sink while also utlizing roof space as greenery to maximize its effect.
Embracing Heritage + Covid Response The building forms of the city should embrace the heritage style that has developed in Lebanon, rich with its history. Individual buildings shall be designed while incorporating the Arabian driven architecture while creating a diversified city and community for tourism.
Multiground + Soft City Living Multi-leveled buildings and connection that goes through each buildings and infrastructure to maximize on capitalising on land value while increase the volume ratio of public space and exposed private space to the surrounding. The soft city concept employs the advantages of communal activities on Ground and Lower Ground Floor.
Cultural and Creative Driven Beirut is well known for their art and nightlife culture that celebrates the social lifestyle with each other. These spaces also becomes a safe haven for the marginalized and a place where intellectual discussion can take place safely. This idea becomes the main basis for the Beirut Artist Park.
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Masterplan
Splitting the land into two major plots, the community parcel assimilate the port boundary into the streets south through a permeable bus station route that act as major entryway to the city. The northeast plots the majority of the port function that employs better and more efficient system of operation.
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Legend 1. The Container Terminal 2. The Empty Container Zone 3. Multileveled Cargo Zone 4. Silos Building 5. Free-Zone 6. Passenger Terminal 7. Port Administration
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Axonometric Masterplan
Where every part of the city is towered by highrise buildings, this city aims to be more people centric and avoids having too many towering structure to be friendlier and preventing isolation among the people of Beirut.
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Business Hub and Accommodation
This parcel focuses on business startups for Beirutese especially among younger folks. It is placed near the port operation where export and goods can relate with one another directly without interfering other programmes.
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Artist Park, Market and Accommodation Linking the city through the Charles Helou Bus Station, the port city get a permeable pedestrian access into the site where programmes are focused on community activities such as communal market, sports facilites, accommodations and a dedicated artist’s park where a park is filled with sculptural buildings that accomodates for daily activities such as saloon, cafes, community kitchen, NGO’s and many more. The Artist Park act as land given back to the community as public park spaces that is lacking in Beirut and also as spaces for artists to commemorate the victims of the Beirut Blast. The spaces also becomes a recreational area where democratic activities can take place.
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Memorial Park
The memorial park employs one of the piers extending out to the basins to bring in the people from different source, in this case, water. It centralises around the explosion of Beirut where this spots becomse the very location for festivities and commemoration. The silos, reinforced acts as the backdrop of the site.
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Education and Malls
Educational building centralising around arts and crafts occupy another basin area to improve the quality of life of education, bringing in the sea and a commercial mall to satisfy the city’s needs.
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Institute of Cultural Activism - The Process Looking into democracy spaces, a study was made to explore the types of spaces typical activists creatively use to gather for demonstations. The process of designing the building starts off with determining the process of the programme flow the building would have. Focusing on cultural activism, the range of activities can come from getting ideas all the way to curating events relating to art and culture of Beirut.
Democratic Spatial Studies
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With the activites considered, a list of space was created to accommodate for those. These spaces or typologies would serve a spatial function or represents the idea of what it would be. With this sorted, the programme mechanism would represent the overall flow of activities that would drive the spatial arrangement of the whole building, based on the 5 mains flows: Voicing Out, Archiving, Make, Present, and Events.
Types of Spaces
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Sketches
Massing Exploration
These diagrams shows the initial building strategies used in the surrounding context of the masterplanning exercise done earlier. These development of forms would later be developed into an idea employing a symbolism of decentralising totalitarian order to invoke the feeling of individualism and neutralness in creating a functioning community that can safely express themselves publicly.
The spatial quality sketches are inital ideas of the spaces before implementing to the final building.
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Institute of Cultural Activism
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The Cathedral
The Production Block | Gallery Basement
The Haven of Expression | Memorial Park | Souk
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The axonometric features a few key areas: The Cathedral, The Produciton Block and the Haven of Expression. The Cathedral is the minaret tower designed to be holistic to create a neutral feeling where people, non-affliated to anything can freely express their opinions. Room of Confessions are placed in the minaret for more radical or private discussion to take place. The Production Block is a multi-leveled, visually-open spaces to promote the communal bonding among the activity of creating tangible objects of ideas. The Haven of Expression, a night club underneath the entire Memorial Park takes inspiration of B180 but instead, below an entire community of souks, creating a whole public community that promotes the idea of intellectual and democratic discussions to take place. The circling monuments surrounding the haven embodies the commemmoration of those lives lost in the Beirut Port explosion.
LEGEND 1. Bathroom 2. Storage 3. Kitchen 4. Dining 5. Living Room 6. Shared Table 7. Bedroom 8. Balcony
Accommodation Unit Accomodation unit designed for 2 people, balancing between conserving space and providing living quality with shared working spaces for boosted productivity and discussion among artists.
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The layout of the building, utilizing the strategy of 4 vertical walls that act as cores and zoning separator, separates the spaces into 3 blocks: The Cathedral, the Production Block, and the Living Block. These arrangement of blocks are based on the privacy zoning of the entire site, where the Cathedral is accommodating for the open frontal entryway from the city while the Living Block hides behind layers of spaces to maintain privacy for the users of the building. The site is inspired by the revolution, looking into creating endless amount of democratic spaces and commemmoration, which leads to a whole open area between the building and the Shipyard, connecting people locally and internationally within a common spaces. These discussions and interaction can take place slightly formally, or casually in the ampitheatres featured or within part of the souk where customers and sellers shares ideas withing these activities. Part of the park features a stream of water that allows users to interact with it while enjoying each other’s companies when washing their feet. These details of interaction subtly affects the overall feeling of casualness and friendliness among the people.
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Ampitheatre
Souk Surrounding the souk and the memorial parks are customized booth that can retract into the floor and raised up depending of its need. It is built using discarded materials from the port, effectively recycling to build the monumental booth where artworks can be placed on it.
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A closer detail into the ground floor plan.
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Front Main Entrance The front main entrance overlooks a towering arch structure inspired from the mashrabiya to create an official totalitarian feeling into the minaret tower. These spaces designed to partly commemmorate the victims also acts as a community spaces where street markets can take place. The totalitarian order reflects those of massive religious structures to create the sense of holiness to accommodate for the activities of neutral sharing. The tall, multi-volume spaces of the cathedral employs a usage of natural lighting to maximise the feeling of holiness intended to invoke the neutrality of it when it comes to intellectual discussion of the current state in Beirut. People can safely express their opinions in such a space as if there is truce among everyone. The other views belows shows different side of the views of the building from different context. Generally these different context promotes a different type of communal gathering surrounding the building, make this a very communal site.
Right View (Memorial Park)
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Street View
Cathedral View
Cathedral of Armistice
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The basement layout stretches into the memorial park, directly connecting people from the park into the gallery of the building. The gallery, placed in the basement intended to utilize the natural lighting to create an emotional effect to those viewing the gallery of artworks and tangibility of ideas created by the artists. The basement also accommodates for more radical activites to carry on such as confessing, whistleblowing, and hideouts for newer youths to gather their next strategy in the revolution. So, naturally, 4 escapeways are featured for the types of users in these areas but also serve as a fire safety precaution.
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Memorial Park View - Into the Haven of Expression From the piers, looking into the memorial park, a stairways leading into the Haven of Expression, and a distant passageway leading into the Gallery of the People. The interior of these basement spaces creates a melodramatic feeling of harshness and lighting to reflect the feeling of Beirutese, not intending to cover it up with toxic positivity until justice was delivered. As time progresses, the spaces itself will become history to younger generations of the crisises faced in Beirut. Most of the interiors spaces would be decorated by decorative elements such as the mashrabiya that separates certain spaces without completely cutting of the connectivity. As part of its heritage elements, destroyed mashrabiyas from the Beirut blast can be restored as ceiling decorations in spaces such as the lobby and studio units.
Haven of Expression
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Gallery of the People
Main Lobby 57
The upper floors of the building uses the levelling privacy as the spaces becomes more private as it ascends. These would accommodate the production part of the programmes, the Open Archive, the Room of Creation, and the roof terrace would be placed here.
The Open Archive
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The Room of Creation The Room of Creation encourages more community interactions among the artist while 6 rooms of private studios can be used for these artist to freely and safely create the works reflecting the Beirut community.
The Room of Creation - Private
The Living Block
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Physical Model
The model cuts through a long section of the building, showing the long axis accessway from one end of the building to another end, connecting all the spaces together while separating the zoning via the vertical walls
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