Bachelor of Architecture / Thesis / Decay by Leyla El Sayed Hussein

A BOOK IS A HOUSE. ITS COVER IS ITS DOOR. WITHOUT THE COVER AND THE DOOR THE DECAY PROCESS CAN BE UNLEASHED.

A Special Thank you to Howayda al Harithy; without her continuous support, none of this work would have been accomplished To the faculty members, to each advice and feedback and to each lecture To the parents and family, the source of everything pretty ‫ احلارضة دامئا ً لإلرشاف عىل هذا العمل‬،‫إىل هويدا احلاريث‬ ّ ‫ إىل كل محارضة‬،‫ إىل كل نصيحة وإرشاف‬،‫الكل ّية‬ ‫إىل أعضاء‬ .‫ مصدر كل جميل‬،‫إىل األهل والعائلة‬

American University of Beirut | Faculty of Engineering and Architecture Department of Architecture and Design Thesis | Fall 2015 Leyla El Sayed Hussein | 201103427 Advisor Howayda Al-Harithy

TABLE OF CONTENT 10

Introduction

11 15 23

I - Initial Interest: Fascination with Decay - Tangible Transformations - Intangible Transformations

33 36 39

II - Concept Exploration - Literary Works - Keywords and Terminologies

48 49 72 83

III - Site Analysis - First Encounter With the Site - Tangible Site Analysis: Mapping Architectural Decay - Intangible Site Analysis: Mapping the Narrativeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Decay

87 93

IV - Intersecting the Tangible and the Intangible - Selected Characters, Stories and Spaces

105 108 111 122

V - Proposal - Strategy of Intervention - Proposed Program References

I - INITIAL INTEREST: FASCINATION WITH DECAY Tangible Decay

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Decay is as lifegiving as it is lifetakingâ&#x20AC;? - Julia Hell

INTRODUCTION Through this thesis, I am particularly interested in understanding the concept of Decay, how it alters existing forms of architecture and thoughts, how it generates new forms and how it can be a motor for future intervention. The thesis mainly discusses decay on two levels: the tangible decay and the intangible decay. The former will tackle the decay of architectural forms: the micro elements and the macro elements. The latter will tackle the decay of stories, narratives and exchange of thoughts among figures. The thesis argues that decay is not a process that starts after death; it is a process that alters death and crosses it to create new forms, and generate new unexpected events. In brief, it is a dynamic process of creation. These thoughts will be projected on a site, Zokak el Blat. The thesis will try to map the two aspects of decay in the site to come up with an intervention where the tangible and the intangible intersect. The strategy of intervention will be the source of a dynamic that will link these concepts. Instead of relating each tangible to its intangible, the thesis will create a new web of stories that aims to regenerate the site as a cultural center projected towards itself, and towards the city.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;A precondition of finding form is to be without form, to suspend the condition of having form, so that a new possibility can emergeâ&#x20AC;? - Deleuze & Guattari

I - INITIAL INTEREST: FASCINATION WITH DECAY The fascination with decay has always been appealing on the personal level. From growing fungus, mapping its growth and seeing how new structures can grow out of death, to a constant search of decaying structures falling and trying to understand the feeling these spaces evoke in us. To understand the first part, a series of experiments were produced at the beginning of the semester. Two main experiments will be included: mapping the growth of fungus from a piece of wood, and mapping the growth of fungus from a rotten potato. The first experiment is an illustration of how decay generates new surfaces and forms; the second experiment is an illustration of how decay can eat a body reducing its size: An addition process versus a reduction process. To understand the second part, a series of literary works will be analyzed. Understanding the selfâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s relation to decaying buildings and question the feelings and thoughts they evoke in us. This part will mainly try to solve the question of our constant fascination with decay.

I - INITIAL INTEREST: FASCINATION WITH DECAY

Tangible Transformations

When a building is in decay, most people say, it is degrading. The term degradation, which resonates with decomposition, is seen as a process of failure, death and cease of function. A rusted steel beam, a rotten wooden door frame or a series of peeled paint layers of the walls can be seen as a growth process instead of a death one. The loss of function does not mean the loss of death. The two experiments included off course ceased the use of the wood as wood, and the potato as potato. The wood was fully covered with a new layer of fungus to a point that the original structure is no longer identifiable, and the potato was constantly carved out, as if it was nearly disappearing. This active cycle of transformations and regenerations was the first initiative to push this thesis towards the concept of decay. Experiment I: Piece of Wood + Water Duration: 30 Days Deprived of: Oxygen | Sun Light | Artificial Light Major Transformations: I - A Complete Visual Absence of Wooden Surface II - A Major Increase in the Solid Size of the Wood III - A Process similar to the Voronoi Tesselation The outcomes of the experiment were divided according to the following: Form Generation, Surface Generation, and Color Generation

I - INITIAL INTEREST: FASCINATION WITH DECAY

Tangible Transformations

FORM GENERATION | Mapping the change in size

fungus growth day 30

cavity i cavity ii cavity iii

speed of growth

cavities size cavity iii>cavity ii>cavity i original piece of wood day 1

new perimeter

Cavity Size is indirectly proportional to the speed of growth, the smaller the cavity, the faster a new layer appears. The cavities growth showed a brighter color than the rest. Therefore, the brighter the colors, the newer the surfaces. The color was an indication from where the fungus would grow. The idea of projecting growth started emerging. SURFACE GENERATION | Mapping the surface growth

I - INITIAL INTEREST: FASCINATION WITH DECAY

Tangible Transformations

thin web

solid surface of thin web

thick web

solid surface of thick web

The thick line is the one connecting the big dots, at the same time the thin lines start connectin the small dots. Once the surface starts forming in between the thick web, the thin web starts thickening, and the process keeps repeating itself while the layers are building themselves on top of each other.

I - INITIAL INTEREST: FASCINATION WITH DECAY Experiment II: Potato + Water Duration: 30 days Deprived of: Oxygen | Sun Light | Artificial Light Major Transformations: I - A growth of two main green branches II - A growth of white fibers only from the green branches III - A growth of white fibers from multiple places on the surface FORM GENERATION

Mapping the change in size

Experiment II: Potato + Water Duration: 30 days Deprived of: Oxygen | Sun Light | Artificial Light Major Transformations: I - A growth of two main green branches II - A growth of white fibers only from the green branches III - A growth of white fibers from multiple places on the surface

Tangible Transformations

I - INITIAL INTEREST: FASCINATION WITH DECAY SURFACE GENERATION

Tangible Transformations

Mapping the surface growth

I - INITIAL INTEREST: FASCINATION WITH DECAY Experiment III: Potato + Acid Duration: 30 days Deprived of: Oxygen | Sun Light | Artificial Light Major Transformations: I - A deep hole which keeps eating the potato

Tangible Transformations

I - INITIAL INTEREST: FASCINATION WITH DECAY

Tangible Transformations

All the experiments were a support to the thesis argument that new forms, whether added ( experiment I and II ) or removed ( experiment III) can grow out of decay.

I - INITIAL INTEREST: FASCINATION WITH DECAY Intangible Decay

“It is an empty desolate place, and I’m sure it is this desolation that makes Dungeness so utterly attractive: that in its emptiness it can become so FULL” - Jane & Louise Wilson

I - INITIAL INTEREST: FASCINATION WITH DECAY

Intangible Transformations

The reasons of our fascination with decay are many. In his book, RUINS, Brian Dillon gathered historical texts for various thinkers such as Simmel, Ruskin and others which are going to be discussed in the next section. He wrote a short introductory essay on the history of decay. He related the human fascination with decay to issues of temporality. The ruin, or the decaying object is a “set of temporal paradoxes”. It is a portal of the past, and as Dillon called it “a concrete reminder of the passage of time” as well a prediction of the future1. Dillon’s argument stops at the temporality layer, and does not include the reason of our fascination with seeing “the concrete reminder of the passage of time”. The reason might be related to the term “ruin lust”, which was introduced by the eighteenth century in the European Culture2. According to Yoanna Terziyska, a contemporary art historian, the feeling of lust is directly related to “consumption”. To the author, lust is the “longing for something that is not ready for a present consumption”3. I do not recall when my fascination with decaying buildings started, but it sure started long ago. The reasons above were not that related to my own, I did not like them for issues of temporality or issues of consumption. To me, decaying structures were a desire to not be, a desire to vanish, and to liberate the self from the body. Once you step in such buildings, your materiality starts to vanish; here we might recall Artaud’s play, where he says that “There is nothing more useless than an organ. When you will have made him a body without organs, then you will have delivered him from all his automatic reactions and restored him to his true freedom”4. That desire to liberate the soul from the body was strongly experienced in decaying structures.

1- Dillon, Biran. RUINS. Introduction. p.11. 2- idem, p.13. 3- Terziyska, Yoanna. Ruin Lust: A Review of Our Fascination with Decay. Drain Magazine.Vol 11:2.2014. 4- Artaud, Antonin. To Have Done With the Judgement of God, p. 571.

I - INITIAL INTEREST: FASCINATION WITH DECAY

Intangible Transformations

The term desire is better used by Dillon, because he replaces it with LUST. Lust, unlike desire, is never achieved, while desire can be experienced, lust is that far desire which we can never reach, therefore the sense of satisfaction is always out of reach, and instead of desire being a cyclical process that goes from desire to experience to satisfaction, lust contains an exponential growth towards a never ending process. The reason of this lust is contained in an object which represents ( indirectly ) two opposing elements: the past and the future. When looking at a decaying building we get a sense of its past, and a sense of what it might become later, but never an exact past or a future image. Moreover, the decaying structure represents an eternal object which will outlasts humankind. It might be an illustration of the human desire to be eternal, the self recognizes the eternity of a stone, which does not require the need of humankind to last. That unreachable state would produce a lust to become eternal. In this context we can evoke Bergson’s theory of sympathy where he defines sympathy as the experience “through which one is moved into the inner being of an object to grasp what is unique and ineffable within it”5. That fascination might be the constant lust to grasp the inner soul of the decaying structure, which is a tangible illustration of a past, and a future, as well as an eternal existence. Lauren Davis, a novelist and a blogger, has an interesting approach towards decaying structures. She sees them as “postapocalyptical”, as if representing a vision of a future where human history has ended6. This surreal transcendence towards such a world resonates with her fictional novels of imagined future cities. When a person encounters a desolated decaying building and steps into a whole new world is discovered, as if, a microcosm of stepping into another planet, or another universe.

5- Bergson, Henri. The creative mind: an introduction to metaphysics, p.159. 6- Davis, Lauren. Why are we so fascinated by photographs of decaying building | http://io9.com/why-are-we-so-fascinated-by-photographs-of-decayingbui-1473075079

I - INITIAL INTEREST: FASCINATION WITH DECAY

Intangible Transformations

For others, the fascination with decay had to do with the act of “mourning”, projecting feelings of the longing to a distant past. The longing for the old, which can sometime reach the level of romanticizing the past, is a desire to go back and live in a past, which we sometimes never experienced. In his movie, Midnight in Paris, Woody Allen introduces this concept of longing and nostalgia. Owen Wilson, the protagonist, is constantly going back in time to witness the golden age of Paris, and meet characters such as Picasso, Dali and others. This idea introduces the concept of the ruin, or the past, because they evoke the grandeur of a lost civilization, a state that we wish we lived in. Woody Allen expressed this idea in the movie when he mentioned that: “Nostalgia is denial – denial of the painful present…the name for this denial is “golden age thinking” – the erroneous notion that a different time period is better than the one ones living in…”

I - INITIAL INTEREST: FASCINATION WITH DECAY

Intangible Transformations

Forms of Psychological Decay John Ruskin: We may live without her, and worship without her, but we cannot remember without her. How cold is all history, how lifeless all imaginary, compared to that which the living nation writes, and the uncorrupted marble bears! - how many oages of doubtful record might we not often spare, for a few stones left one upon the another! (Ruskin, 1982, p.224)

II - CONCEPT EXPLORATION Literary works

â&#x20AC;&#x153;How to LOVE anything other than the possibility of RUIN? Than an impossible totality? Love is as old as this ageless ruin - at once originary, an infant even, and already old.â&#x20AC;? - Jack Derrida

II - CONCEPT EXPLORATION

Literary works

In this section the thesis will discuss the concept of decay according to selected scholars. This analysis of their literary works will better shape the position of the thesis statement, especially that each scholar defined decay in his own way. Some related it to other fields, such as biology, psychology or sociology. The element of death was the most common term in all definitions. The difference was the reference of death towards decay, and whether death is a precondition to decay, or a result of decay. Jane Jacobs saw that death is a mandatory element to achieve decay, to her the decay in architecture is directly defined by the biological decay of living organisms. It is “a detritus of a dead organism”8. Decay is a process by which the actor and the acted upon are one organism, where the body eats itself. Decay, in all fields as in architecture is the proof that death has occurred. The aspect of death was also present in Robert Ginsberg’s discussion on ruin; to him the death of the building’s function is the prime reason for its decay9. To others, decay took another direction, and the notion of death was not present. Decay took a poetic level to people like Ruskin and Riegl. According to Ruskin, decaying structures contain injuries of time; he mainly relates ruins to memories, and stresses that they are necessary for us to be able to remember. Memory can serve to describe architecture as a vehicle for maintaining the status quo, for resisting change and criticism10. Riegl on the other hand introduced the concept of age value, which is the historical value made visible by a physical example, like the patina. Reigl refused conservation, and thought that buildings should be left intact, a concept he called “the reign of natural law”, a concept a bit related to Ruskin’s, but more directed towards the physicality of time rather than its intangibility. The concept of dirt and patina for Riegl were crucial to the decay process and are fundamental elements to convey time. Georg Simmel was combining Ruskin and Riegl together in the following: He stressed on the nature‘s force in the decay process and linked it to intangible human thoughts, feelings and perceptions. He says that a decaying structure encompasses the nature’s return; it is a play between inert force of architecture resisting pressure, and natural forces that push upward. For him, the decayed object is a “accommodation between nature and culture”11. He sees ruins as a way of organic state to take over. For him, decay produces “new form, entirely meaningful, comprehensible, differentiated.12” 8- Jane Jacobs, Buildings Must Die. P.69. 9- Idem, p.169 10- Idem, p.220 11- Brian Dillon, RUINS, p.13 12- Georg Simmel, “The Ruin”, p.259

Architecture

Jane Jacobs

Robert Ginsberg

John Ruskin

Alois Riegl

Le Corbusier

Georg Simmel

Occurs aaer the death of architectural elements

Occurs aaer the death of the architectural funccon

Occurs at birth

Should not Occur

Occurs at birth

Tangible A Detrius of a DEAD (biology|Materi- ORGANISM, the body al|etc) eats itself Intangible (memory|rela-on to space)

A reign of the natu- An accumulaaon ral law of dirt

A Detrius of the use of space

An engine to maintain memory

A reign of the natural law

An engine to maintain memory

Birth Decay

Passage of me directly proporronal to memory and me and age value

Birth Decay

Passage of me directly proporronal to age value Alois Reigl

Birth Decay

Passage of me directly proporronal to memory and me

Birth

Physical and funcconal Death

Georg Simmel

John Ruskin

Decay Robert Ginsberg

Birth

Positioning the thesis statement

Funcconal Death

Decay

Area of interest

Jane Jacobs Time Beginning of Decay

RELEVANT CASE STUDY

II - CONCEPT EXPLORATION Keywords and terminologies

II - CONCEPT EXPLORATION

Keywords and terminologies

As Jane Jacobs related the concept of decay to Biology, the idea of keywords and terminologies emerged. Not only between biological decay and architectural decay, but also among other fields such as physics, geography, computations and others.

Biological Decay: is the process by which organic substances are broken down into a much simpler form of matter. The process is essential for recycling the finite matter that occupies physical space in the biome. Bodies of living organisms begin to decompose shortly after death Decay Theory: proposes that memory fades due to the mere passage of time. Information is therefore less available for later retrieval as time passes and memory, as well as memory strength, wears away. Wearing away does mean the disintegration of memory, but its transition to a dormant form Optical Decay: quick reduction of luminosity of astrophysical objects Exponential Decay: a gradual decrease; as of stored charge or current, in an exponential function

II - CONCEPT EXPLORATION

Keywords and terminologies

The following illustrates the technical words in architectural decay on the level of materiality:

II - CONCEPT EXPLORATION

Keywords and terminologies

As an experimental process some keywords such as: Decomposition, rigor mortis, bloat and others were analyzed. Decomposition is the process by which organic substances are broken down into a much simpler form of matter. The process is essential for recycling the finite matter that occupies physical space in the biome. Bodies of living organisms begin to decompose shortly after death. Animals also help do this such as worms. They decompose the organic material. Animals and other organisms that do this are known as decomposers. Although no two organisms decompose in the same way, they all undergo the same sequential stages of decomposition. The science which studies decomposition is generally referred to as taphonomy from the Greek word taphos, meaning tomb 13.

13- Quigley, C. Modern Mummies: The Preservation of the Human Body in the Twentieth Century. McFarland. P. 213

RELEVANT CASE STUDY

III - SITE ANALYSIS Projecting The Concepts onto a Site

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Arriving at each new city, the traveler finds again a past of his that he did not know he had: the foreignness of what you no longer are or no longer possess lies in wait for you in foreign, unpossessed places.â&#x20AC;? - Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities

III - SITE ANALYSIS

Projecting The Concepts onto a Site

To understand the various concepts of decay in a more concrete way, and to link the multiple theories and terminologies, Zokak el Blat will be chosen as a site to analyze taking Akarâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s house, a decaying structure as the main analysis tool to illustrate decay.

Zokak EL Blat 2011

III - SITE ANALYSIS

Projecting The Concepts onto a Site

First Encounter with the site ‫ ومستقبل‬،‫مباض ال تنتهي صالحيته‬ ‫ تفيض حواسك‬.‫ يفيض والدة وجتدد كل يوم‬،‫ يف زقاق البالط غدرا حلوا‬.‫ النها تأخذ منا ماضينا‬،‫تغدرنا املدن‬ ٍ ،‫ هل حقا غدرتنا املدينة؟ املدن ال تغدرنا‬.‫ تتأمل و ترنو بنظرك بعي ًدا‬.‫ تأرسك نلك األزقة‬.‫ وكل جميل من حولك يضاهي كل جمال‬،‫ أنت هنا‬.‫ال يأيت‬ .‫وحدها الذاكرة ختوننا‬

The First encounter with the site was an encounter of curiosity, fascination and discovery. That first encounter was a second and a third until I stopped counting. Each time I entered the site, and as Italo calvino said, I discovered a past I did not know about. The north entrance from the Avenue of Foad Chehab is majestic. Two buildings in decay mark the entrance of Zokak el Blat. In front of Burj al Murr stands Akar’s house, and Hneineh Palace marking the boundaries of the area. Once you step in and walk straight in Rue abdel Kader a feeling of beautiful desolation haunts you. The towers breaking the urban fabric start diminishing in height and the decaying buildings all around take over. Imagination starts playing its role, what were the buildings like? What was the neighborhood like? What were the spaces like? And if I asked people around would I get a sense of the real space in the past? Or would I get a constructed imagined space?

III - SITE ANALYSIS

Projecting The Concepts onto a Site

III - SITE ANALYSIS

Projecting The Concepts onto a Site

III - SITE ANALYSIS

Projecting The Concepts onto a Site

III - SITE ANALYSIS Tangible Site Analysis: Mapping Architectural Decay

â&#x20AC;&#x153;If Beirut were an amphiteatre, imbedded within the foothills of the Lebanon range and facing the sea to the north, the city centre would be the orchestra and the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s pericentral districts its audience. Zokak el Blat occupies the tiers beginning at front row, stage rightâ&#x20AC;? - Ralph Bodenstein

III - SITE ANALYSIS

Tangible Site Analysis: Mapping Architectural Decay

Akar’s House

Akar’s house 2015

III - SITE ANALYSIS

Tangible Site Analysis: Mapping Architectural Decay

Akar’s House The first analysis of the site started with a single house: Akar’s House. Passing next to this house everyday I have always stopped and watched which parts of the house are falling over time. The house suffered a traumatic event in October 2011 when its owner destroyed its south part on purpose in order to sell it for a developer. Since the house was listed as a heritage building by the Municipality of Beirut in 2009 its destruction was stopped. Today, its north and east facades still stand, but the south and west façades, in addition to its central hall are completely destroyed. When passing next to the house one cannot but stand and take a look. Many trees are growing wildly in the house and its garden, a red tile roof is nearly disappearing, and all openings and fenestrations are lacking their wooden frames. These openings yielded a more porous structure, connecting it visually to all what’s around. From the north you can see Burj Al Murr, from the east the famous qasr Hneineh and qasr Ziadeh and from the south high residential towers. Stepping into the house was a major component in the way I looked at it, and changed major elements in the thesis. Inside, a world of its own was being built. The house is a charming serene desolated place made of two floors.

Akarâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s house, a charming serene desolated place made of two floors. A decomposed wall paint, peeling off, with a thick layer of dust, that is nearly solidifying. Blue, gold and gray for the walls, white pieces of wood left hanging on some door frames, a big rubber tree in the north garden breaks the wall of what used to be the dining room and reaches its ceiling. Forgotten objects in the house, a plagiarized dvd of Pretty Woman, an old rocking horse made of plastic, and old clothes that are covering the floor.

Akarâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s house 2015 | Interior 1

Akarâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s house 2015 | Interior 2

Akarâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s house 2015 | Interior 3

The back garden is filled with Ailanthus trees growing right on the joint of the floor and wall. The two components are about to break apart and completely detach. After the intentional destruction in 2011, the access from the central hall to other rooms in the first floor was impossible. The people who lived in the house after 2011 had to break the core wall of the stairs of the second floor in order to access the rooms of the first floor. Decay started generating such alterations. Some walls were falling on their own, opening up two rooms next to each other, changing the typology of the house, other elements were altered by the people who were trying to adapt themselves to decay. An interplay was taking place between people adapting to decay and acting accordingly, and decay altering the house. From the first floor you can see a little bit of the interior of Qasr Hneineh, a small wooden rotten stairs take you up to the roof. The floor of the roof is filled with empty syringes. The roof, a place to escape within this vast destruction.

Akarâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s house 2015 | Interior 4

Akarâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s house 2015 | Interior 5

Akarâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s house 2015 | Interior 6

Akarâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s house 2015 | Interior 7

Akarâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s house 2015 | East Facade

Akarâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s house 2015 | Interior 8

III - SITE ANALYSIS

Tangible Site Analysis: Mapping Architectural Decay

Mapping Akarâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s House Mapping the new forms and alteraaons generated by Decay

Surveying Akar s house in order to understand the new forms and alterations generated by decay, the changement in circulation and the boundaries of destruction.

Missing Part of the House Most Damaged Balconies

Projecting the future decay of the house to understand how the typology will change over time. Some walls and parts of the roof will fall in the near future. Others will fall in the far future. Access to ﬁrst Floor

Less Damaged Balconies To Decompose in the far future

Access to second ﬂoor

To Decompose in the near future

Isometric Seccon | Entrances Previous Circulaaon

East Elevaaon | 1:100

Very Highly Damaged

Damaged

Highly Damaged

Least Damages

New Circulaaon

To Decompose in the far future

Exploded Axonometry | Second Floor Previous Circulaaon

To Decompose in the near future

Intended Hole in the core of the first floor to access the ground floor

North Elevaaon | 1:100

Exploded Axonometry | First Floor

oor

n t e

III - SITE ANALYSIS

Tangible Site Analysis: Mapping Architectural Decay

Walking around the neighborhood, anyone will immediately realize that Akarâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s House is an example of this decaying phenomena repeated tremendously on the site. Although each house is decaying differently, and each has its own history and its own urban setting, a network

of decay started forming. I started mapping this network, seeing where it intensifies and where it lessens, and what kind of relations is being built between these decaying structures.

The following map was produced with the areas having the most decaying structures highlighted.

2010

Informal seelers broke in

2009

Civil War | 1975

1919 1920

1880

1876

Graphing Decay

Mapping decay in mullple buildings

Hneineh 1880

Intennonal deconstruccon of the north wall by near by developer Mistreatment of the interior of the house by informal seeles

Ziadeh 1876

Plot603 1920

Fall of the roof

Normal ďŹ&#x201A;ow of decay Akar 1919

Intennonal deconstruccon of the house by the owner

Normal ďŹ&#x201A;ow of decay

III - SITE ANALYSIS Intangible Site Analysis: Mapping the Narrativeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Decay

‫“من زقاق البالط يف بريوت إىل كنسنغنت يف لندن مسافة‬ ‫بعيدة األشياء‪ .‬لكنها‪ ،‬يف ساعات الهواجس األقلية‪ ،‬تبدو‬ ‫يل قريبة األحايني‪ .‬هواجيس‪ ،‬تلك‪ ،‬علّة هذه الصفحات‪.‬‬

‫عي عميق الذهول‪”.‬‬ ‫إنها هي التي انطقتني من بعد ّ‬

‫‪ -‬خليل رسكيس‬

‫‪“Zokak el blat is a quarter that acts‬‬ ‫‪as a microcosm of the history of‬‬ ‫”‪modern Beirut‬‬ ‫‪- Hans Genhardt‬‬

III - SITE ANALYSIS

Intangible Site Analysis: Mapping the Narrative’s Decay

After analyzing the site on a tangible level another layer was needed to understand the site. The intangible layer was a very rich source of analysis. As I needed to dig in desolated houses, I needed to dig in the history of the site, of its people and their narratives, and understand how they are decaying. The site of Zokak el Blat constitutes one of the oldest areas to agglomerate outside the intra muros old city of Beirut 14. Between 1875 and 1912 the city expanded at very high rates and Zokak el blat flourished and became a major attraction to the bourgeois families, which in consequence made the site a major hub of intellectuals and national figures. It became a center of cultural and educational institutions. With the beginning of the French Mandate in 1920’s, and due to the presence of highly intellectual figures and politicians in the site, two things happened; first, the site became a center of political meetings, and second, a big wave of migrants arrived from the south and north villages of Lebanon 15. In 1975 the civil war took place and most residents left the area due to its proximity to the green line. The area was hugely damaged, a big number of houses was destroyed, and an exchange of residents took place. Most houses were squatted, and ever since the cultural nature of the site started degrading. In 1975 the civil war took place and most residents left the area due to its proximity to the green line. The area was hugely damaged, a big number of houses was destroyed, and an exchange of residents took place. Most houses were squatted, and ever since the cultural nature of the site started degrading. What is relevant to the thesis, as we said earlier, is the decay process of these stories and figures who lived, thought and wrote in the site. Many schools of thought still studied till today were born in Zokak el Blat under the work of Lebanon’s main national figures. A series of interviews took place, including a person who lived in Akar’s house, in addition to digging in various historical texts to understand the intangible network among figures. After reading about each character alone a network started emerging. Somehow, the characters seemed to be connected whether through a relation of friendship, a relation of blood, or a relation of antagonism. The following diagram illustrates the growth of this network, its relation to the site and the various schools of thought it gave birth to. The timeline started with Ibrahim al Yazaji and Boutros al Boustany who came to Zokak el Blat in 1840. Their relations with their successors are illustrated in a color coded diagram. 14- Urban Observation, Zokak el Blat. Majal, Academic Urban Observatory Institute of Urban Planning, 2012, p.11. 15- Idem, p.13

IV - INTERSECTING THE TANGIBLE AND THE INTANGIBLE Selected characters, stories and spaces

Basically each character gave birth to another character, each house gave birth to another house and each story gave birth to another story. A story, a house, a character. Who came first? And who gave birth to the other? Does it really matter?

IV - INTERSECTING THE TANGIBLE AND THE INTANGIBLE | Selected characters, stories and spaces After analyzing the two layers of the site’s decay, the tangible and the intangible, an intervention had to take place at the intersection of these two levels. At this level I started thinking in ways of how to merge the two, and how can Ruskin’s decay, directly related to memory, connect with Ginsberg’s decay of materiality and architectural elements. I had to come up with a strategy of intervention which will be the source for this dynamics between the tangible and the intangible. After the analysis and visual survey of the houses, I picked up a series of characters, and picked one personal story of each which happened in one of these houses in Zokak el Blat. I started decoding the story in order to transform into a spatial experience. A tangible space is created out of an intangible story. These spaces which correspond to each house were then located on the map to see what kind of network they would produce. The following diagrams illustrates the choice of the characters, their accompanied story and the three dimensional model as an outcome.

Witness, Walid Neouche Sheikh Muhammad Abduh

Nohad Haddad

100

1935-present

Space V IV Space

1959-present 1849-1905

Original Space Original Space

Extruded SpaceSpace Extruded Subjeccve of Space to Fairouz Subjeccve to Abduhâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;s perceppon space A series of progressive frames

Egyppan Islamic jurist, religious scholar and liberal reformer, regarded 1959-1975 in the akarkey House asLived one of founding ďŹ gures of Islamic Modernism

A character perceived as a naaonal icon The family later moved into a home in a cobblestone alley called Zuqaq el Blaa in Beirut. Living in a single room of a typical Lebanese stone house, they shared a kitchen with the neighbours. There, she met Mohamad Flayfel and Assi al Rahbani, her experience with the site is one of progression and unexpected events

Extruded Extruded SpaceSpace II II

Winding Frames according to each event Constant layers of texts renewal, each a chapter Got Married and lee the site to Antelias

1955

Witnessed the black saturday 1886 Abduh translates the treaase of Jamal Aldin AAghani in the residence of Butrus al Boustany, South Zokak el Blat. From the windows of the core wall of the stairs, he witnessed Sabah coming every week to the neighborhood, his lover from far, and the three palessnian killed onthe thecorrect door ofinterepretaaon, his house Beleived in Origin ofkids Islam with origins of the core For him, the house is a big gloomy space, lacking natural light

He taught theology, logic, mysscism and was constantly renewing islamic texts

Fragmentaaon of spac and conneccons to the neighborhood

Marie Chiha Haddad 1889-1973

Space VISpace II

Original Space Original Space

Space III

Original Space

Extruded Space Space Extruded

Extruded Space

Subjeccve to Walid’s perceppon of the house of space Subjeccve to Dahesh’s perceppon

Subjeccve to Marie’s perceppon of colors One big colorful space

One big decomposed space

An Arrst and Writer A loyal friend to Dahesh, and a member of Daheshism Came to live in the castle and started painnng, soon she was called the Bedouin’s Arrst

Extruded Space Space II Extruded II

A core that can look out to the site Irregular space out of mundane conﬁnements

1916

Iniiated her Literaty Salon in the Castle

1920

Started publishing books

1937

Suﬀered from deep depression because of the tragic death of her daughter Magda. She abandoned her painnng and went into seclusion unnl her death in 1973.

1945

Extruded Space III One traumaac event leading to spaaal seclusion

Extruded Space II One traumaac event leading to spaaal reconﬁguraaon

101

V - PROPOSAL Strategy of Intervention

”‫جتد‬

‫ واقرأ‬،‫“اكتب تكن‬

‫– محمود درويش‬

“Storeytelling is the most powerful way to put ideas into the world today” - Robert Mckee

108

V - PROPOSAL

Strategy of Intervention

The strategy of intervention would be to intervene on the studied buildings in specific areas ( related to each character ) in order to regenerate a program out of these houses. The strategy would be to constantly fuel the site with a plug in to regenerate something new an let it grow. Similar to the water used in the fungus experiment, and which is constantly added to let the fungus grow, I started thinking about what kind of plug in should be added to the site to make it constantly grow. An exchange of stories and narratives should take place to let the site regenerate itself again. These series of small interventions required an appropriate program to allow the growth of something out of decay. The following diagram illustrates the steps of the intervention: Identify the house | identify the story | locate the story and character | intervene and plug a program | identify the network between the interventions

Design Strategy and Intervennon

A growing program that will regenerate the site as a cultural hub to the neighborhood and to the city Design Strategy and Intervention A growing program that will regenerate the site as a cultural hub to the neighborhood and to the city Step I

Qasr Ziade

Idennfy the decaying structure with potennal on Site

Step II

Step III

Idennfy the main elements of the story

Speciﬁc Rooms to the character

Intervene by injeccng the iniial elements of the program

These represent the main elements to keep and create the core of the new structure

Exposing Mai’s Space to all the site through various direccons, the red space represents potennal spaces for future intervennons

The core, and the windows represent the main elements to keep for the character, visibility is the main concept

Exposing the chatacter’s cores as a main element to keep in the house

Qasr Akar

Area connected to the character

109

Speciﬁc Rooms to the character

The core, and the windows represent the main elements to keep for the character, visibility is the main concept

Exposing the chatacter’s cores as a main element to keep in the house

110

Turning it porous, connected the outdoor to the house and Vice versa

Carving out the building to become a link between various points at the site

Starrng to connect various points on the site through Fairooz’s mansion

Spaces to carve out and to connect the mansion again to the neighborhood

The space subjeccve to the character becomes the generator of the new spaces that would be implemented

Possible spaces for future intervennons

Qasr Hneineh

Fairooz’s House

One square Room

V - PROPOSAL Proposed Program

â&#x20AC;&#x153;The birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the authorâ&#x20AC;? - Roland Barthes

114

V - PROPOSAL

Proposed Program

The site needed a program that will resist any form of death, a program that while decay can generate something new. A book. An idea, an exchange of thought is the proposed program. A staged program which will start as plugging in writersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; rooms in the small interventions described in the private chapter. These writersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; places will implement two networks among them, a tangible physical network and an intangible network. These two networks will implement a secondary program, a communal space and a writing center for these writers to think and write and exchange ideas among them. Such a program will eventually implement the need of a tertiary program inviting the public. Public spaces should be implemented to allow for people to come and see the work of these writers. Through such a program the site will be regenerated as a cultural hub not only addressing the site, but addressing the city.

BUILDING UP THE PROGRAM 117 STAGED INTERVENTION Building a cultural cluster that will rgenerate the city

QUATERNARY PROGRAM Carving out voids, intervennon with the public

TERTIARY PROGRAM Literary Salons, exhibiion spaces, prinnng houses, etc Exchange of Stories Interference with the public Invitaaon of Stakeholders

SECONDARY PROGRAM Communal Space for Writers Building A Community

Communal Spaces

INITIAL PROGRAM Writerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Space Communal Spaces

Exchange of Stories

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Decay is as lifegiving as it is lifetakingâ&#x20AC;? - Julia Hell

‫‪118‬‬

‫عندمــا مــات نبيــل‪ ،‬دفــن فــي التــراب فأمســى شــجرة‪ .‬عندمــا مــات نبيــل‬

‫كتبــت عنــه نصــا‪ ،‬فأمســى ّ‬ ‫نصــا‪ .‬نمــوت لنمســي أشــياءا أخــرى‪ .‬لــوال‬ ‫المــوت لمــا كبــرت الشــجرة‪ ،‬لــوال المــوت لمــا كتبــت النــص‪ .‬المــوت‬ ‫خلــق والمــوت حيــاة‪.‬‬

REFERENCES Books: AlSayyad Nezar. Cairo: Histories of a City. Cambridge, Mass. : Belknap Press of Harvard Universitry Press, 2011. Bodenstein, Ralph. Villen in Beirut : Wohnkultur und sozialer Wandel 1860-1930. Petersberg : Michael Imhof Verlag, 2012. Bois, Yve- Alain. FORMLESS: A user’s Guide. New York: Zone Books, 1997. Brian Dillon. RUINS. London : Whitechapel Gallery, 2011. David Lowenthal . The Past is a Foreign Country Cambridge University Press, January 29, 1999. Dylan Trigg. The Aesthetics of Decay: Nothingness, Nostalgia, and the Absence of Reason. Peter Lang International Academic Publishers, July 27, 2006. Eliel Saarinen. The city, its growth, its decay, its future. New York : Reinhold, 1943. Franklin Medhurst. Urban decay : an analysis and a policy / [by] Franklin Medhurst and J. Parry Lewis with a chapter by Elizabeth Gittus. London : Macmillan, 1969. Frederik N. smith. Beckett’s eighteenth century. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire : Palgrave, c2002. Gebhardt, Hans. History, space and social conflict in Beirut : the quarter of Zokak el-Blat. Ergon Verlag in Kommission, 2005. Italo Calvino. Invisible cities. London : Vintage Books, 1997. Julia Hell. Ruins of modernity. Durham : Duke University Press, 2010.

REFERENCES Ken Seigneurie. Standing by the ruins : elegiac humanism in wartime and postwar Lebanon. New York : Fordham University Press, 2011. Macaulay, Rose. Pleasure of Ruins. London: Nabu Press, 2011. Michael St John. Romancing Decay: ideas of decadence in European culture. Aldershots : Ashgate, c1999. Mohsen Mostafavi. On Weathering: The Life of Buildings in Time. The MIT Press, March 22, 1993. Paul Zucker. Fascination of Decay. Ridgewood, NJ : Gregg Press, 1968. Philip Ursprung . Herzog & de Meuron : natural history. Montreal : Canadian Centre for Architecture, 2005. Quigley, C. Modern Mummies: The Preservation of the Human Body in the Twentieth Century, 1998. Roth. Michael. Memory, trauma, and history: Essays on living with the past. New York : Columbia University Press, 2012. Stephen Caims. Buildings Must Die: A Perverse View of Architecture. The MIT Press, April 18, 2014. Tim Edensor. Industrial Ruins: Space, Aesthetics and Materiality. Bloomsbury Academic, June 4, 2005. Verdeil, Eric. Beyrouth et ses urbanistes : une ville en plans, 1946-1975. Beyrouth: Institut Francais du Proche-Orient, 2010. Vidler, Anthony. The architectural uncanny : essays in the modern unhomely. Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, 1992. 1993 ،‫ دار الجديد‬.‫ من زقاق البالط إىل كنسنغنت‬،‫ الهواجس أألقلية‬،‫خليل رسكيس‬

REFERENCES Movies: Feghali, Pascal. Le quartier de Sanayeh a Beyrouth : une exploration filmique. Beyrouth: Institut Francais du Proche-Orient, 2009. Websites: http://arquitectorial.com/2015/04/ex_machina/ http://designandviolence.moma.org/mycotecture-phil-ross/ http://drainmag.com/fascination-with-decay/ http://mycelium-tectonics.com/ http://philross.org/projects/mycotecture/#about/ http://www.archinode.com/Arch9fab.html http://www.edouardfrancois.com/en/all-projects/housing/details/article/145/limmeuble-qui-pousse/#.VkDVnPkrKhc http://www.florence-expo.com/show/project.asp?idut=1879 http://www.mitchelljoachim.com/ http://www.moma.org/collection/works/816?locale=en

REFERENCES Articles: Swann, Jasper. Modes of Decay. Discovering Stone, issue 20. OLJ. Deux bijoux architecturaux en peril. Lâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;orient le Jour. 07/03/2015

Thesis: Fein, Zachery. The Aesthetics of Decay : Space, Time and Perception. University of Cincinnatti , 2009. Hansford, Alexa. Decay and Opportunity in Architecture. Architecture Thesis Prep. Syracuse University, 2014.