Reconstructing Aleppo

RECONSTRUCTING ALEPPO? FUTURE PRECEDENTS SEEN THROUGH PAST PRECEDENTS OLIVER BALDOCK. MARCH 2016. 0609A.

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for Part II of the Architecture Tripos 2016.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Supervisor: Dr Wendy Pullan

This author would like to thank Dr Wendy Pullan for both enduring the many revisions and hours of supervision to get my dissertation to the point it is at, but also for inspiring me to continue my research in this field through her tales of exploits and encounters whilst learning and teaching about this subject.

A big thank you also goes out to those working for the Aleppo Project, and the respondents to their survey of Aleppian residents which has provided an invaluable insight into the needs and desires of those at the heart of this piece of work.

Word count Text, footnotes & captions: 9,080 Bibliography & List of Illustrations: 1755

ABSTRACT This paper examines how heritage practices differed within conflict zones since World War II in an effort to assemble a series of questions to be asked by those looking to rebuild Aleppo, Syria, when the ongoing Syrian conflict eventually subsides.

An examination of the exact reconstruction of the Old Town of Warsaw will consider the feasibility of reconstructing Aleppo in a similar method when it has only just emerged from such a period. The case of Mostar discusses letting a monument stand for a divided city, and whether the involvement of the international community produces a useful result. Beirut, and the case of Solidere, then explores issues with large scale developments and what constitutes well designed architecture in a post-conflict period.

Finally, the issues raised are further assessed as a series of questions, put forward to form the basis for beginning to look at the plans to rebuild Aleppo, no matter the outcome of the conflict.

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CONTENTS List of Illustrations

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Introduction

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Critical Analysis of Historic Precedents

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a: Warsaw: For whom are we rebuilding?

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b: Mostar : The role of the international community in reconstructing a city

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c: Beirut: The privatisation of a development

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Aleppo: Questions to be asked

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Conclusion

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Bibliography

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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Figure 1. The citadel of Aleppo surrounded by the modern city and road network by Frederic Soltan/Sygma/ Corbis (1993) [Photograph] At: http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/mar/24/syria-war-citadel-aleppohistory-cities-buildings (Accessed on 15.03.16) Figure 2. Map of the current situation in Aleppo as of February (2016). Red represents the Syrian Army, green the Rebel forces and yellow the Kurds. (2016) [Photograph] At: http://www.imlebanon.org/2016/03/14/ imlebanon-replies-on-beirut-souks/ (Accessed on 15.03.16) Figure 3. Map of road blocks in and around the city of Aleppo with red marking confirmed locations and yellow marking unconfirmed (2013). At: http://www.aaas.org/aleppo_retrospective (Accessed on 15.03.16) Figure 4. Royal Castle Square, Warsaw (1902) [Photograph] At: http://www.architektura.info/index.php/ architektura/galeria_miast_dawnych/warszawa/(offset)/50 (Accessed on 15.03.16) Figure 5. Bellotto, Kolumna Zygmunta od strony Wisły, Warsaw (1768) [Painting] oil on canvas.

Figure 6. Royal Castle Square, Warsaw (2011) [Photograph] At: https://www.google. co.uk/maps/place/The+Royal+Castle+in+Warsaw/@52.2471099,21.0137019,17z/ data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x471ecc661b455407:0x2019a146fb49c9be (Accessed on 15.02.16) Figure 7. Mostar’s Restored Old Bridge: Stari Most (2005) [Photograph] At: http://www.klix.ba/vijesti/bih/ stari-most-upisan-na-unesco-vu-listu-svjetske-kulturne-bastine/050715012 (Accessed on 15.03.16) Figure 8. Political cartoon depicting UNESCO falling along with Stari Most (1993) Bozo Stefanovic, “UNESKO” [Drawing] In Oslobodenje, November 15, 1993, p. 2 Figure 9. The bell tower vs. the minarets. Emily Makas (2011) [Photograph] Mostar’s Central Zone: Battles over Shared Space in a Divided City (Queens U, Belfast, 2011) Figure 10. The bell tower vs. the crucifix. Marko Gajst (2015) [Photograph] At: https://gaj.st/r/2015/travelcroatia-bih-june-2015.html (Accessed on 15.03.16) Figure 11. Mostar’s High-school on the Bulevar (2016) At: http://bbqboy.net/hate-sadness-mostar-bosniaherzegovina/ (Accessed on 15.03.16) Figure 12. Pavarotti Music School set in the old High-school (2016) [Photograph] At: http://novasloboda.ba/ mc-pavarotti-koncert-grupe-igor-i-rodaci/ (Accessed on 15.03.16) Figure 13. The ancient Souk before the war. (2006). AT: http://mic.com/articles/87343/then-and-now-photosshow-what-aleppo-looked-like-before-it-was-destroyed-by-civil-war#.n45pIYCjm (Accessed on 15.03.16) Figure 14. Moneo’s ‘restored’ Souks (2016) [Photograph] At: http://www.imlebanon.org/2016/03/14/ imlebanon-replies-on-beirut-souks/ (Accessed on 15.03.16) Figure 15. Resident’s campaign to stop the progress of Solidere (2016) [Photograph] At: https://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/St._Georges_Hotel,_Beirut (Accessed on 15.03.16) Figure 16. What should the rebuilding in Aleppo focus on? (Created by Author using data ascertained from the Aleppo Survey, 2015) Figure 17. Who should help rebuild Aleppo? (Created by Author using data ascertained from the Aleppo Survey, 2015) Figure 18. Tilel Street, Aleppo, before the war by Lazhar Neftien (2009) [Photograph] At: https://www.flickr. com/photos/lazhar/5302386616/ (Accessed on 20.03.16) Figure 19. Tilel Street, Aleppo, after the war by Don McCullin (2012) [Photograph] At: http://www.thetimes. co.uk/tto/news/world/middleeast/article3629640.ece

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Figure 1: The citadel of Aleppo surrounded by the modern city and road network by Frederic Soltan/Sygma/Corbis (1993)

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INTRODUCTION Over the past decades we have watched the widespread destruction of conflicts slowly move into the urban environment. The wars -which for many centuries were fought on fields located miles from any settlements- now appear on the streets of cities as residents watch buildings, monuments and spaces become as much targets as those structures holding the weapons. Thus, in the wake of these urbanised conflicts, the extent of the impact includes as much the cities and towns, left unable to function, as the human casualties and the survivors, for whom the urban landscape needs rebuilding.

The immediate, and most obvious, reaction to this occurrence is to attempt to develop a plan for reconstruction as soon as the conflict subsides. This often follows an innate desire to see the return of homes which Sultan Bakarat identifies in determining the two basic needs for human recovery following conflict. These are: • To reaffirm a sense of identity and, • To regain control over one’s life.

How though can the residents, the people of a nation, expect to find a sense of identity when a reconstructed city is returned to them unchanged, after years of war, when they themselves have changed so much? Therefore, this work intends to explore the notion that for Aleppo, one of the oldest cities in the world, and currently amidst the Syrian, reconstruction is neither the best nor the only option for approaching this war-torn city.

For the past five years, Aleppo has been at the centre of the Rebel/Syrian Army conflict with the division running through the old city (Fig.2). As these frontlines have moved over the years, the whole city has been engulfed with much of the city’s infrastructure now under the Syrian Army’s control (South Front, 2015) and little domestic architecture left untouched. This has resulted in the mass migration of residents from both Aleppo, and Syria, with many reportedly selling their properties to fund their movement into Europe.

With the news that 52% of those questioned in the 2015 survey of refugees by the Berlin Social Science Centre, would not return to Syria whilst Assad is in power, the question for the future of Aleppo is, who will return and what will they return to? (Pasha, 2015) Moreover, it is important to remember that if, and when, these refugees do return to the city, they will likely be subject to the severe class and religious divisions further dividing

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Figure 2: Map of the current situation in Aleppo as of February (2016). Red represents the Syrian Army, green the Rebel forces and yellow the Kurds. (2016)

Figure 3: Map of road blocks in and around the city of Aleppo that change as frontiers move. (2013)

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the city. Whilst the student uprising of 2011, quickly transformed into rebels factions, -supported by many of the working class- attacking the Syrian Army -supported by middle class groups- the escalation of the conflict, and the involvement of other parties, including the Kurds, Iranians situated in Northern Syria, and ISIS, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, has seen the growing division of Sunni and Shia Islamic sects. Furthermore, whilst inter-state conflicts often end with national unification against the opposition, the intra-state nature of the Syrian conflict will, most likely, leave the nation affected by social, ethnic and religious tensions extending far beyond the end of any gunfire. Therefore those looking to help rebuild this nation need to be watching for a lull in the fight -rather than the unguaranteed end of the war- to begin their work.

Moreover, it was only in 2007 that the Aga Khan Trust for Culture, a group of private, international and non-denominational development organisations, finished 5 years of extensive restoration work in Aleppo. With the considerable cost of that project and the projected cost of reconstructing the city estimated to be in ‘$100 billion’ (Cambanis, 2015) is the restoration of the city a feasible option, or can, as Layton suggests, the establishment of Bakarat’s identity be grounded in a more modernist drive towards the future (Layton, Stone, & Thomas, 2011). This places emphasis on the process of reconstruction more than the final result. (Gamboni, 1997) Whilst most of the damage to the infrastructure and everyday architecture of Aleppo is a result of the ongoing conflict, during 2014 the iconoclastic terrorists of ISIS were responsible for the intentional destruction of 27 ‘key structures and locations’ deemed to be heritage sites in Aleppo, and the damage of a further 113, including ‘great damage’ to the ancient citadel of Aleppo (Unitar, 2015). In 1944 Raphael Lemkin proposed the notion of ‘Cultural genocide’, describing the deliberate destruction of a culture’s objects as an attempt to ‘liquidate’ that culture by implementing a ‘year zero,’ where the intangible memories of the people have no tangible object on which to attach themselves. However, Adrian Forty states that ‘memories in the mind [cannot] be transferred to solid material objects’ (Forty, 1999) and that the built environment is but a prompt for a community’s memories. As such, even the smallest alteration can affect what is recalled. Therefore a city does not need to be destroyed for a community to forget their attachment to it, it simply has to change at a pace faster than the creation of new memories. As such, Bevan is pertinent in suggesting that ‘the destiny of [a group’s] representative architecture is an excellent indicator of whether

genocidal intent is present’ (Bevan, 2006), one of the many reasons why the actions of ISIS are now considered to be war-crimes. However, this intentional destruction of culture heightens the awareness of a community’s associations with the built environment, and often the destruction of ‘structures of signification’ and ‘systems of symbols’ (Geertz, 1993) does not cause the ‘nation to forget what it is and what is was’ (Kundera & Hubl, 1979) but rather an ‘intensification of allegiance to the group reflecting a desire for preservation’ (Bevan, 2006), with many post-conflict communities seeing the revival and creation of old and new cultural traditions.

The decision to study Aleppo enables an interrogation of these associations within the present period assessing whether the historic processes that have been in practice within the post-conflict periods of other cities are in anyway relevant to Aleppo’s needs today.

This will also work hard to examine Bevan’s damning statement that ‘restoring architecture can never resolve conflict’ thus helping to critique the common belief among many aid organisations, at least until the mid-2000’s, that ‘Culture Must Wait’, demonstrating that, not only can architecture help to temper unresolved altercations, but that the process of rebuilding a city can, itself, be a healing exercise.

The collective work of humanity, since at least the Agricultural Revolution twelve thousand years ago has been to surround ourselves with things more permanent than the activity by which they were produced so that the next generation may remember where they came from (Arendt, 1998). However, will the people of Aleppo, if they return when the conflict subsides, want to remember what they are and what they were? And despite the withdrawal of Russian forces earlier this year, with no end in sight for the conflict, it is near-impossible to understand the situation on a first hand basis. So is there anything we can say?

The analysis of each of the following three historic precedents allows a critical consideration of what has been done in the past, highlighting the major issues considered relevant in post-World War II reconstruction and that may be considered relevant today in Syria.

For this, only time will tell. But in the meantime, many different groups are thinking about what measures could be taken for reconstruction.1 In this limbo – of seeing the city of Aleppo destroyed, knowing that reconstruction will need to play a major part in its future, but also looking at a world that looks increasingly to the private sector and its 1 The parties include organisations such as UNESCO and the World Bank, but also extends to countries such as France, Spain and Italy who have suggested expanding their programs from Lebanon into Syria. There are also innumerous private organisations.

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accompanying financial gain – it is worth analysing the successes and failures of previous post-war reconstruction, and then to consider to what extent they might be used in Aleppo? The Old Town of Warsaw in 1945-1950 is the first obvious example, exploring the relevance of exact reconstruction in a post-conflict scenario, particularly with regard to the issues of memory. Such concerns will play a pertinent role in the consideration of Aleppo’s future, noting its proximity to the recent reconstruction work by the Aga Khan trust. The case of Mostar after the civil war in the former Yugoslavia (1992-1995) cites the importance of community involvement, especially if the international community has a role in rebuilding a city, and with little access on the ground currently in Syria, this study is more than worthwhile. And finally, downtown Beirut, rebuilt as the Solidere project after the Lebanon Civil War (1975-1990) warns of the issues surrounding privatisation and development, especially potent as Syrians raise funds to emigrate by selling their homes, most commonly, to developers. (BBC, 2015)

CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF HISTORIC PRECEDENTS A: WARSAW: FOR WHOM ARE WE REBUILDING?

“She defies the storm” (Tung, 2001) – Regarding Warsaw

The decision to reconstruct the Old City of Warsaw in its entirety, following the destruction of World War II, has created, what is today considered, a UNESCO world heritage site. But why is this considered a suitable response to the extensive erasure of the city’s heritage, especially when Jan Zachwatowicz, who headed the department of reconstruction (BOS) at this time, stated that it should not have been considered ‘reconstruction,’ but ‘rebuilding’, as he himself was afraid of the ‘inauthenticity’ of his work. (Tung, 2001) This, whilst a matter of semantics, defines an issue with the process of exact reconstruction.

In 1945, under the looming presence of the Soviet army, Hitler ordered for the occupied city of Warsaw to be razed, partially in retaliation for the uprising of 1944, as his forces retreated from the area in an act Tung describes as a systematic process of cultural annihilation. (Tung, 2001) When the Soviets arrived, having waited for both the end of the uprising and the exit of the Third Reich, a mere 15% of the city was standing and less than 14% of its’ historic heritage. As such, Stalin’s communist regime considered relocating the country’s capital to Lodz and postponing the rebuilding of Warsaw. This, however, did not happen for several reasons. Firstly, the sizeable human influx quickly returning to the city sparked an informal reconstruction process (Glinkski, 2015). The regime’s agreement to reconstruct the city became part of an appeasement to the disgruntled population of Poland, who bore witness to Stalin’s neutrality as their city was destroyed. (Mezga, 2005).

Mezga also argues that the Stalinist sponsored reconstruction was an ‘attempt to implement socialist town planning dogma’ and a subtle form of architectural censorship. Finally, the reconstructed Warsaw provided a stage from which Stalin could launch discussions with Roosevelt and Churchill at the Yalta Conference of 1945. (Glinkski, 2015) But why and how was reconstruction such a powerful political ally for the Stalinist regime? And was it a suitable response to the erasure of a city? Many other European cities affected by the World Wars, saw the reconstruction of monuments, churches and towns halls without which it was deemed their nations could not exist. (Ascherson, 2005) But the

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rest of the city gained a new post-war housing typology which today constitutes much of the British housing stock. However, the Zachwatowicz-led BOS chose a regime funded reconstruction of the entire Old City “in order to relay for future generations at least their form, alive in our memories and records, even if it is not authentic”. (Stanley-Price, 2005).

The discussion which follows can be resolved into two main questions. The first of these is ‘What was trying to be achieved with the reconstruction?’ The reconstructed Old City of Warsaw bears little mark of the trauma of war which doesn’t allow the intangible memories of residents to be placed in a tangible physical environment. Zachwatowicz talks of the importance of the form for memories, but records demonstrate that what stands today is not what existed previously. The scheme had been compromised under the ‘Socialist Realism doctrine’ (Goldman, 2005) which prohibited the rebuilding of any 19th and 20th Century architecture that ‘had been derived during a political period when Poland was occupied by foreign powers’. (Tung, 2001). Varsovian architecture was considered to be of two types: progressive, including renaissance and neoclassic architecture, dating from the 13th century up to the late 18th and considered most ‘Polish’; and reactionary, the art nouveau styles of the 19th and early 20th century which were evidence of capitalism within the city. The rebuilding of the progressive was allowed, the reactionary was not.

However, although the city’s people donated over 4.5million zlotys between 1946 and 1964 (Jankowski, n.d.) towards the project, there was still heated debate between those supporting the reactionary architecture wanting the ‘restoration of buildings’ with a return ‘to their previous shape’, and the progressive narrative who desired a city to “serve the needs of the present and the future” (Goldman, 2005). This process of selective restoration created a historic core compatible with the regime’s ideology and a ‘continuity with a suitable historic past’. (Hobsbawn & Ranger, 1983) This careful disassociation between the historicity of the city’s past and the reconstructed town is one of accident and purpose. Whilst the Stalinist regime decided to ‘creatively reconstruct’ those architectural style that did not fit into its ideology, other progressive sites saw a reconstructed fiction. For several projects, the only records -of the thousands saved by Architect-Soldiers and academics- that pertained to particular buildings were 18th Century paintings of the city by Belotto, nephew of Italy’s Canaletto (Fig.5). However, post-reconstruction it emerged that the artist had a tendency to improve upon reality, with many buildings around the market square having their façades adjusted, the details

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Figure 4: Royal Castle Square, Warsaw (1902)

Figure 5: Belotto’s painting of Royal Castle Square, Warsaw (1768)

Figure 6: Royal Castle Square (2013) recreated in the exact image of Belotto’s painting rather than what existed previously

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of which then appeared in the reconstruction (Fig.4-6) However, at a national scale these details are insignificant. For the city acted as a symbol of defiance, providing a platform on which the Polish nation could begin to rebuild after such traumatic events (Sandbu, 2015). Yet as a resident returning to Warsaw, the removal of the ‘reactionary’ architecture and tiny alterations in the reconstruction, created an ‘uncanny disjuncture between the city they remembered and the city in which they now found themselves.’ (Riedlmayer, 1995) This is, however, not just an issue with the accuracy of reconstruction. It is an issue of memory itself which divulges itself by two means. The first is the emphasis that reconstruction places on the ‘distance between then and now’ (Crowley, Memory in pieces: The symbolism of the ruin in Warsaw after 1944, 2011). The residents have changed both in age, for many it was a decade of war before their homes were returned. Such a significant period of war changes a person, affecting their outlook, whilst the ‘facsimile’ reconstruction of their home bears no record of conflict or of the time that has past, almost denying the owners of their memories.

The second issue is that of memories differing from realities. For many of those residents who left during the war, they returned to see a city, once destroyed before their eyes, standing again, with little mark of war. Such a surreal experience, questions the validity of their memories. One Varsovian recalls ‘that the house I was born in was destroyed violently thirty-six years ago—but I can go into the bedroom I had as a boy, look out of the exact same window at exact same house across the courtyard.’ (Lowenthal, 2015) The tangible environment lays inconsistently with the intangible memory. And for those who lived around the Old Market Square, the experience was weirder still, seeing the façades of their houses painstakingly restored only to find the interior redesigned under socialist housing principles.

Although UNESCO’s has qualified this city as an outstanding example of near-total reconstruction of a span covering the 13th to the 20th Century (UNESCO, 1980) the question of its intended recipient remains unresolved. The Old City appears more of a replica of its former self rather than acquiring a new identity. This, however, provides an excellent tourist destination, demonstrating a past and an identity that the community wanted to retain. But, both the nature of the reconstruction and UNESCO’s acclaim mean

that the Old Town has frozen at a point in time, unable to grow and develop naturally.

This case of post-World War II Warsaw demonstrates one strain of heritage practice. It is an example of attempting to reconstruct, with great accuracy, what existed pre-conflict.

As an approach it is less favoured by today’s culture but has been used by the Aga Khan Trust in restoring parts of Aleppo just four years before the conflict began. This practice raises two significant questions for the future plans for the Aleppo. The first is, ‘Should we reconstruct in an exact manner?’ For Warsaw this process was expensive, but in a nation unified by war, it came as a result of a national outcry to be remembered. The process has become testament to the strength of a nation with UNESCO’s listing demonstrating the success of this.

The second question is to ‘What extent does this approach create expectations and then disappointment for the local residents who were expecting to have their city ‘returned’ to them?’ Following conflict, the urban environment is expected to change, but when residents are ‘given back’ a restored city there is an expectation of a return to everyday life (Kersten, 1991). But the decisions taken here caused unexpected changes to the city.

The market square has, in part, had its 16th century brickwork restored replacing the 18th century bullet-ridden façades, effectively erasing a whole period of the city’s history.

Our connection to the built environment is delicate, and any attempt to reconstruct this relationship from rubble can often lead, as demonstrated, to an uncanny disjuncture for those who once called the city home.

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B: MOSTAR : THE ROLE OF THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY IN RECONSTRUCTING A CITY

The Bosnian conflict (1992-1995) which played a role in the break-up of Yugoslavia, saw the Bosnian Serbs and Croats, aided by Serbia and Croatia respectively rise up against the republic of Bosnia. This mixture of inter and intra-state conflicts appears a more familiar situation to Aleppo than the case of Warsaw. Mostar’s relevance to the Syrian city comes following the ‘contrived reconstruction’ of one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the region and poses two questions. The first, who should take control over the post-conflict plans for the built environment of the city, and secondly, a question asked by Slavenka Drakuli with reference to Mostar, “Why do we feel more pain looking at the image of the destroyed bridge than the image of massacred people?” (Bevan, 2006).

During 1992, the Old Bridge, locally known as ‘Stari Most’, was deliberately targeted by Bosnian Croat artillery fire and collapsed after being hit by a reported 60 shells. With both the bridge and its’ bridge-keepers, ‘Mostari’, giving their name to the city it is, perhaps, understandable why so many would ‘mourn’ (Bishop, 2008) for this architectural piece of history(Fig.7). However, it appeared to have been more than sadness, there was a sense of disbelief. Somehow, and the Aleppian surveys (The Aleppo Project, 2015) report similar observations that, in such conflicts, there is an expectation that people will die, but an assumption that the architecture, especially that which is already older than us, will outlive us further.

‘A dead woman is one of us; but the bridge is all of us for ever’ (Drakulic, 2013).

However, is this the only reason the international community paid so much attention to the reconstruction of the bridge? Undeniably, there was a need for the bridge to be rebuilt but with several thousand dead and over thirty thousand displaced, was heritage a priority? The division of the city -with Bosniaks and Muslims in East Mostar and Croatians and Christians in the West- was not seen before 1992, when ethnically diverse marriages made up 30% of the 1991 total. The frontline ran along a no-man’s land at the Bulevar, just 200 metres west of the Neretza river, which itself was long considered the front line by international organisations and media. Stari Most, contrary to belief, did not bridge the divided communities, and in fact, further divisions existed among either side, with

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Figure 7: The reconstructed bridge as a tourist attraction and object of beauty (2005)

Figure 8: Political cartoon depicting UNESCO falling along with Stari Most (1993)

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distinct districts all surrounding the neutral ‘Central Zone’. (Calame & Pasic, Post-conflict reconstruction in Mostar: Cart before the Horse, 2009) Prior to the conflict, the bridge was indeed a point of pride and a landmark in Mostar but since its destruction, and reconstruction, it has become a symbol of reunification for its international funders. UNESCO, calls it ‘a symbol of reconciliation, international co-operation and of the coexistence of diverse cultural, ethnic and religious communities,’ (UNESCO, 2016) and whilst it lays testament to the success of international co-operation, for the local community -whilst historic and beautiful- it is little more than a connection from one part of Mostar’s Muslim and Bosniak East to the other.(Fig.8) This became a sore point for the Croatian West, as it’s reconstruction apparently marked a ‘reconciliation’, politicising a structure of little significance to the Western community.

‘Stari Most was transformed from an outstanding relic of Ottoman architecture and engineering and symbol of local and national pride to representing a bridge between cultures’ (Makas, n.d.)

Makas notes the aesthetic qualities of the bridge which is used as the logo of the local football team, the city of Mostar, and features on the Austro-Hungarian stamp. It was then posthumously defined as this ‘multicultural symbol’ by Amir Pasic in a talk to the international community in 1994. (Grodach, 2002) This attention provided an unmissable opportunity for the NGOs who, having been previously criticised for their lack of involvement in protecting Bosnian culture set to work ‘bridging communities’. Interestingly however, whilst the bridge did little to ease ethnic tensions, it has revitalised the tourist industry of the city, subsequently leading to an increase in both private investment and self-funded projects. The image of the formerly ‘backwards’ Balkans has begun to improve.

(Grodach, 2002).

And although the Stari Most reconstruction provided immediate jobs and income for families left stricken after the war, both it and the tourism industry are unstable markets.

The reconstruction process was useful in bringing together the local community on a much loved project, but once finished ‘The eyes are full and the pockets are empty.’ (Djulic, 2000)

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Figure 9: The bell tower vs. the minarets (2011)

Figure 11: The divided high-school on the Bulevar (2016)

Figure 10: The bell tower vs. the crucifix (2015)

Figure 12: The site of the old high-school, now inhabited by the Pavarotti Music Centre

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‘Not until some firms or some factories are rebuilt where those people could work will we need the old city’ [Djulic, 2000] This returns to the question of ‘why do we reconstruct grand monuments’. There have been projects appearing later which have provided more useful results and, even, symbols, for the city than the grander monuments. These demonstrate the importance of communityled planning from the outset.

With the 2008 construction of the Jewish Synagogue in Mostar’s central zone, the city became one of only three in the world to have an Orthodox Church, Catholic Church, Mosque and a Synagogue within 100 metres of each other. This, perhaps, is more a symbol of unity than that of the reconstructed bridge for “people who cannot abide the sight of each other will not build the houses and monuments of their religious life in the shadows of those of the others.” (Riedlmayer, 1995) However, there is an eerie sense of competitiveness between the oversized bell tower of the Franciscan church and the numerous minarets of the mosque opposite (Fig.9). Ironically, the bell tower also competes with the crucifix dominating the local hillside (Fig.10) whilst even the minarets of abandoned mosques have seen extensive repairs in an act that the unbiased hand of international funders were all too willing to oblige. UNESCO’s insistence that the money be used in ‘a balanced manner and with shared responsibilities’, often meant that Mostar’s politicians ‘side-stepped’ the high priority projects, such as the housing and infrastructure of East Mostar –which had received more damage than that of the West- in favour of projects that promote interethnic peace such as, purportedly, the Stari Most. (Calame, 2005) In contrast, the 2006 construction of the high-school on the Bulevar, bridging the frontlines has quickly provided a lasting impact. (Fig.11) For although ethnic tensions still exist within the area, the symbolism of children from opposing sides attending a single institution, albeit one with separated staircases and classrooms, has been compared by many, including Calame, to the unifying effect of the bridge. Furthermore, the opportunities for its students to develop, integrate and change over the years are far greater than opportunities provided by Stari Most. Such proof lies with the 1995 restoration of a ‘severely damaged historic structure’ in creating the Pavarotti Centre Music school with its’ new cultural centre for the area, and integrated student community. (Fig.12) Calame concedes that it was necessary for Stari Most to be rebuilt, but argues against its

priority over the essentials in the scheme of reconstruction. Indeed, Adams argues that it is both ‘the survival of architecture and urban life [which] is important to the survival of people,’ (Adams, 1993). This denotes a relationship between the monument, ‘the architecture’ and the domestic, the housing, the industry, the ‘urban life’ of a city. A reconstruction plan needs to quantify what is most important and what is most useful for a community.

Often, as in Mostar, these priorities can differ, but community involvement, as with the more recent projects, is a useful start. As Pasic mentions, education is often a cheaper, but longer, method of resolving tensions in community and whilst the benefits of resurrecting Stari Most are undeniable, and it has provided a kick-start to the economy, the long term benefits of educations are incomparable.

Mostar illustrates the problem of letting monuments stand for a divided city. Stari Most was only a significant symbol for one half of the city, and through its reconstruction it has become a politicised and divisive monument. Compared to Warsaw, Mostar offers little evidence that the reconstruction of heritage can help to heal divisions. This will be a major consideration in Aleppo. It also questions the role of the international community in this process. For Mostar, whilst there were more effective tasks and projects to be funded, the media coverage of the bridge led to its prioritisation. This is of concern in Aleppo where the damage to the citadel has already garnered considerable media attention.

For Aleppo, with the vulnerable predicted to be returning first, the reconstruction program requires tailoring to their needs. The importance of cultural heritage becomes almost insubstantial compared to the lives of the population. However, Adam’s argument that architecture and urban life are entwined dictates a need for the monuments –the history of a region- to entice the community to return to their urban life. Community involvement within projects cannot happen without a community present.

Lastly, Mostar is a lesson on the ties and conditions associated with external funding and questions the potential down sides to ‘strings-attached’ donations. If the decision of which projects to fund is taken away from the organisations and managed on a local scale, will that affect the scale of funding, and will it improve the distribution of resources, and the outcome?

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C: BEIRUT: THE PRIVATISATION OF A DEVELOPMENT

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It must be remembered that Downtown Beirut is […] a melting pot where persons of different faiths converge in one place [representing] the natural location for Lebanon’s financial and economic core. (Makarem, 2013)

There has been a transition over the past sixty years, as discussed already, from interstate conflicts, happening between nations, to intra-state conflicts, between opposing sides within one nation. (Holsti, 2010) More often than not, these conflicts have become urbanised, with religious disputes featuring on the agenda of many. In such situations the post-conflict scenario rarely results in resolved tensions, leaving, as in Beirut’s case, the city divided with the Christian Maronite East and the Sunni Muslim West, each having their own distinct political cultures, and the so called ‘Green Line’2 buffer zone forming between them (Khalaf & Khoury, 1993).

Internal conflicts and civil wars over the past decades often focused on the politics of identity or nationalism from their outset, revolving around how communities related to each other, rather than any particular state interests. (Ramsbotham, Miall, & Woodhouse, 2011). This has seen an increase in the targeting of the ‘others’ heritage, a deliberate attack on a community’s history in order to inflict, in many cases, cultural genocide. However, whilst Beirut is a prime example of this, the main concern since the withdrawal of the Syrian Army in 1982, has been the privatised redevelopment and rebuilding of downtown Beirut.

“Today, with the fighting over, there is a new plan to destroy the city centre once again, but this time with the bulldozer and the pick-axe, in order that Beirut can reclaim its former title as the Hong Kong of the Middle East.” Trendle quoted in (Sawalha, 1998) Founded in 1994, by Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, the private company, Solidere, ‘took over’ the reconstruction of downtown Beirut in a city where conflict had seen 800,000 residents migrate from the city. With one quarter of all housing stock either damaged or destroyed during the conflict and the further destruction of the ancient Souks ‘in a series of mysterious demolitions in 1983 and 1986’ (Makdisi, 1997), there was little opportunity 2 So called as the only thing which flourished in this no-man’s land was nature.

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Figure 13: Aleppo’s ancient Souks before war damage (2010)

Figure 14: Moneo’s redesigned Souks open for business. (2016)

Figure 15: St George’s Hotel, Beirut. Campaigning against Solidere’s forced redevelopment (2016)

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for residents to re-inhabit their homes before Solidere took over the reconstruction. This de facto absence of residents -and the implementation of Law 117 (Randall, 2014), passed in 1991- allowed Solidere to expropriate the property of residents within the downtown area.3 This has led to a modernist, seemingly Westernised, drive in the architectural styles of the rebuilt city and, also, the masterplanning and further destruction of the downtown area: The city centre appears as an empty space, a placeless space, and a hole in the memory.

How are we to preserve the memory of this place in the face of such frightening amnesia?

Elias Khoury quoted in (Sawalha, 2010) The Solidere team speak of downtown Beirut as an area ‘thousands of years old’ with a traditional ‘focus of business, finance, culture and leisure’, (Solidere, 2016) and whilst trying to reinstate Beirut as ‘the Hong Kong of the Middle East’, it seems almost ironic that the reconstruction plan should erase the city’s history leaving a blank slates for Hariri’s team to work on.

With Moneo’s redesign of the ancient Souks (Fig.14), Hadid’s plan for a high-end shopping mall and Marino creating ‘Manhattan-style’ apartments, the scheme has had impressive publicity, appearing regularly in architectural journals as projects by Richard Rodgers and Norman Foster are announced. But this is an example of where well designed, beautiful architecture is not, at this stage, suitable for a city still emerging from conflict. The enormous amount of new infrastructure within the heart of Beirut intends to return the city to days of former glory, but in doing so the needs of the less economically wealthy, and vulnerable, residents have been pushed down the list of priorities. Downtown Beirut now belongs to the high end business and tourist economy as high rents and the further removal of heritage sites push out the residents and local business that still remained.

[Pultar, 2013][Wainright, 2015] However, similar to a project named ‘Common Enemies’, created by a Cambridge studio tutor of (Gittner), Solidere’s presence in Beirut has found unified opposition from residents who are ‘developing daily opposition strategies in the form of public speeches, demonstrations, gossip, and issuing religious legal casuistries.’ (Sawalha, The Reconstruction of Beirut: Local Responses to Globalization, 1998) (Fig.15) Such activities express the importance of the 3 If they could not themselves afford to update their properties to the styles deemed appropriate by the planners working with Solidere.

existing public spaces within the city, where locals can express their views. This has been the role of Martyrs’ Square since the 18th century, and after fifteen years of being divided by the ‘Green Line’, in 2005 it once again became a space of public communion following the assassination of Rafik Hariri.

With breath-taking speed, Martyrs Square had reclaimed its forgotten role: a place of meeting, continuity and community. In a single moment it had shrugged off its emptiness and separateness, becoming a place of new symbols in harmony with the symbols of the past and the rebirths of history. [Yussef Bazzi] At that point, it remained one of few places in downtown Beirut not yet developed, serving as testimonial to the importance of a thread of continuity for the city’s residents to hold on to. But is the destruction of other spaces and other heritage irreversible? The physical structure of a Souk can be recreated, but can the atmosphere of spontaneity and its community involvement ever be restored in a city forever altered by conflict? Or has the work of Solidere now set the city on a new path, unable to reclaim its long heritage and having to settle for a new identity?

Many, both national and international have criticised the development as passing over the heads of the community and being, as Vanessa Martin describes, ‘Hariri’s profit making puppet’. Solidere’s campaign argues that the continued destruction of buildings under the pseudonym of reconstruction was to remove the troubling architecture that would ‘remind people of a disturbing, unsafe or undesirable past’. Yet there was little community consultation as to what this undesirable past was. In fact, with the post-war community still heavily divided and Hariri himself not being from either side,4 yet still carrying the majority stake in Solidere, what is undesirable for the people of downtown Beirut is a contentious topic.

Three hundred structures which pre-dated the era of sectarianism and the civil war were allowed to be restored as ‘neutral, safe memories’ (Makarem, 2013), in an act that further erased the memories and struggles of the civil war period. Indeed, the modernist reconstruction has been perceived as a Westernisation of the city, an alternative source of cultural destruction with many critiques of the ‘Manhattan-style skyscrapers’ growing on the skyline (Sawalha, Reconstructing Beirut: Memory and Space in a Postwar Arab 4 Hariri, although born in Lebanon spent much of his life in Saudi Arabia, a country which provided little help during the conflict. Already a billionaire, he quickly became the major shareholder in Solidere.

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City, 2010). Hariri, unlike Zachwatowicz, was faced with a choice of how to rebuild, with enough building stock remaining for Solidere to feasibly attempt to return the city to its ‘traditional role’ where ‘people of various social-economic configurations could interact with one another’ rather than the current depoliticised centre based purely on ‘an ethos of consumerism and commercialism’ (Makarem, 2013) that Foster’s high rises may pertain to.

Beirut and the case of Solidere opens up two questions for Aleppo. The first is that of leadership, and the control of such a project. Solidere has always remained under the hand of Hariri’s estate which created unified, masterplanned development in the downtown area. Whilst there has been rumours of land grabbing by various parties in Syria (Week In Review, 2016), the more prominent issue are the Syrians returning to Aleppo to sell their property in order to fund their emigration. Reports suggest that the buyers in such cases are mainly developers, but not a united conglomeration (BBC, 2015). With domestic housing plots lost to developers this could potentially see the further influx of modern Aleppo into the older city. Meanwhile Assad himself has been talking future plans with Russian and Iranian companies, with, most notably, a lack of Western involvement, which could present a more reasonable and potentially less profit driven alternative. (Heffez & Raydan, 2014) The more likely scenario is that any future projects will accommodate the needs and desires of whoever retains the power. As such, with Assad’s supporters generally being middle class families, the worry is that a similar fate will befall the working class residents of Aleppo as those of downtown Beirut. However, this time, rather than being priced out of downtown Aleppo, development may consume the entire city.

ALEPPO: QUESTIONS TO BE ASKED Aleppo proves to be at the centre of this conflict. Much like Warsaw, it is a symbol for the country and having been vital to Syrian culture for thousands of years, the rebuilding of its heritage could revitalise the country. However, to rebuild a world heritage site is not a simple task, even to begin with. As Seth Kaplan mentioned back in 2013, and is, according to recent articles still the most probable case, the war is likely to end in a form of stalemate, with the city fragmented between the Government, Rebel, Kurdish and, possibly, other forces (Kaplan, 2013). The pragmatic and simple conclusion to the inevitable tensions of this stalemate would see a nation fragmented with large buffer zones running through the city. The more preferable option is rebuilding the city in such a way that it draws the two, maybe more, sides together. In doing so, those working on the future of Aleppo will have innumerous considerations –some of which are discussed in this chapter- that will inevitably decide who returns to the city and whether Aleppo can recapture its former glory.

WHERE DO THE CURRENT DIVISIONS LIE?

Prior to the current conflict there existed divisions within the city of Aleppo. Unusually for a Syrian city, however, this was not the traditional Sunni/Shia divide born of religious belief, but one of class and clan lines.5 This has now, inevitably, evolved with the introduction of other forces into the city, most notably ISIS, which has seen further divides along religious lines. Class divisions, however, have been forcibly emphasised by the Regime as eyewitnesses state that “Syrian military has taken positions in the high-rent districts, where rebel fighters are blamed for bringing the violence from the countryside into the city” (Resneck, 2012). The wealthy support of government forces is rooted in the stability of the Regime, compared to the chaos of the Rebels and the Free Syrian Army, documented in Littles’ ‘Syrian Notebooks’.

However, at a first glance, class based divisions appear easier to reconcile than religious ones. The regime, itself, has been focusing its destructive efforts on the infrastructure of Eastern Aleppo in ‘order to advance the case that life is better in government-controlled parts of the country.’ (Mackinnon, 2015). How then, as with Mostar, do international organisations 5 At least according to Edward Dark, Al-Monitor.

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provide more funding for the worse hit Eastern Aleppo, controlled by the Rebels, without seeming to neglect the Western communities? This issue was seemingly ignored in Mostar with UNESCO’s policy of unbiased support remaining strong. However, ignorance suggest an acceptance of these class divisions as an inevitable aspect of urban life, and if so, focus should be given on the repairing the relationship between these parties. How to do this on an urban scale is a trickier question, but one that needs an answer prior to drafting any plans.

IS THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE CITY THE BEST OPTION?

Innumerous articles and reports produced over the past few years talk about the reconstruction of Aleppo, and with over half the city’s heritage either badly damaged or destroyed it’s easy to see how such action is deemed so important. (Connolly & Bloch, 2015) After all, the reconstruction of Warsaw proved a monument of defiance for the country, the reappearance of the historic old town allowed the memories of its residents, although disjointed, to interact again with the built environment. Of course, it’s important to remember that the Varsovian community, although weakened by the uprooting of millions of people and the destruction of traditional patterns of life (Kersten, 1991), had seen the end of the conflict, something unlikely to happen anytime soon in Aleppo.

Monuments can be divisive as well as unifying, and the continuing presence of these tensions leaves little room to misjudge these relationships. Indeed, surveys conducted by the Aleppo Project over the past year and a half demonstrate that a significant number do not wish to see the re-emergence of any regime related buildings (The Aleppo Project, 2015). These results depict, a small proportion of the population with the majority of respondents registering as Sunni Muslims. Nevertheless it demonstrates the contested state in which such large reconstruction projects lie.

The other issue is the proximity of the conflict to the ending of the 1999 works by the Aga Kahn Trust for Culture, which finished in 2007, on restoring the citadel and large parts of the city (Aga Kahn Trust For Culture, 2008). Can the results of this intense work justify the further expense of a predicted ‘$100 billion’ (Cambanis, 2015) to complete the exact same task? Further to this, Mackic’s point rings about Mostar rings relevant that “You should never rebuild the way it was”, echoing the citizens of Beirut’s point that “the war changes us. You should show that in rebuilding.”

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Figure 16: Allepians opinions on what the priorities for rebuilding should be.

(2016)

Figure 17: Allepians opinions on who should be involved in rebuilding Aleppo.

(2016)

WHO SHOULD LEAD THE PROJECT?

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“Aleppians should be the ones in charge of this process, as they are the ones who created the city in the first place. This would also create job opportunities for the local youth.”

(Marsi, 2015)

Ultimately, whoever has more control over the city when the fighting subsides, controls its future. (Cook, 2015) However, both the case studies and the survey demonstrate the importance of community involvement in rebuilding Aleppo.(Fig.17) The case of Mostar analyses the influence that international investors can have over local officials in directing investment towards certain causes. This may suggests issues with both top-down planning procedures, and the general motives of international organisations within such a process.

For example, the further reconstruction of the citadel, at the heart of Aleppo, could be seen by many organisations, both national and international, as a high priority project, receiving funding before the city sees its infrastructure and homes rebuilt. At this point in particular, the project becomes a source of resentment for the millions blighted by the conflict. The monument has become divisive rather than unifying.

It is also the worry of more than two-thirds of those interviewed, including 85% of those in lower economic classes, that upon returning to the city they will not be able to reclaim their homes despite still retaining ownership documents. This has led to an increasing number of Syrians selling “their property & assets to get the funds they need to make the journey to Europe” (BBC, 2015). The issue, for UNESCO at least, in trying to piece together a recovery plan becomes who is buying these properties. Reports from 2012 also noted that militia across Syria, were “raiding houses, ransacking and then fraudulently selling or leasing them” (Hassan, 2012) leading to both displaced residents and an uncontrolled housing market. Although those in power when the conflict subsides, control the city, its future somewhat lies in who owns it’s property, defining both who returns and what they return to. (Fig.19)

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Figure 18: Tilel Street, Aleppo, prior to the start of the conflict. An area of boutique shopping, and high density residential a few streets from the citadel. (2009)

Figure 19: Tilel Street, Aleppo, during the conflict, with many of the residents fleeing the area and the shops boarded up or abandoned. (2012)

WHAT ARE THE INTENTIONS OF INTERNATIONAL BODIES?

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This writing has currently solely critiqued the notion that ‘Culture must wait’, but the other extreme that ‘Culture has priority’ is equally flawed. Culture is inevitably tied in with the everyday environment. You cannot appreciate the Architecture, the designed monument of a city without its architecture, the everyday built environment of the people. Nevertheless, as Mostar and, to some extent, Beirut demonstrate, the national and international organisations that participate with the local community, far too often channel funding into the big projects. Whether the rebuilding of ‘Stari Most’ in Mostar was a public relations stunt, or whether there existed a genuine belief that it could help bridge the divided community, is still an unanswered question, and whilst the project kick-started the tourism industry within the region, it certainly did not help to solve any tensions.

Projects have to be built in parallel to each other. Homes cannot function without the infrastructure to make them liveable, electricity, water etc. And at the same time, families cannot return to these homes when there are no schools for their children or no jobs to provide income. But, most importantly, why would families want to return if everything that made their city home no longer existed. Aleppo was a beautiful city, and the draw of family and friends can only do so much in bringing people back to the city (The Aleppo Project, 2015). It has to speak for itself, the role of the local mosques, churches and community centres have proven in Mostar to be useful for, at least part of, the community, and without the history and the memories of the urban place, returning residents have little to connect to, as seen in Beirut.

WHAT AIM SHOULD THE REBUILDING HAVE CONSIDERING THE POLITICAL OUTCOME OF THE NATION?

The ultimate aim of any work in Aleppo should be to ease the tensions still residing between the conflicting sides. However, in inter-state conflicts the lack of an offending party in the post conflict period made the unanimous decision to reconstruct Warsaw much easier compared to intra-state conflicts, where two or more opposing communities are asked to live beside each other again. Thus, while peace, however unlikely, is the ultimate aim, in the early stages such an unachievable target can deplete the resources of aid organisations (Bevan, 2006). As these case studies demonstrate, peace is rarely achieved through the construction or reconstruction of a monument or single motif. In Mostar it took the privately funded Pavarotti Music Centre, rejuvenating the old high-school, rather than the Stari Most Bridge, to even begin to rekindle a connection between the opposing sides.

(Nickalls, 1997) This is not to say that the bridge hasn’t revived the tourism industry, but that these high publicity, low impact projects should not be the first thought of potential funders. Whatever the outcome, people will still be displaced, and the current focus should be to consider what the priorities are for the demographic that will return to the city first.

Designing and building for the vulnerable will create an Aleppo far different than what it was.

However, primarily, the aim of those looking in from the outside should be to be involved, as Assad ‘reportedly told a Jordanian delegation visiting Damascus that he would not permit investors and companies hailing from the West or the Persian Gulf to have any role in reviving his country’s economy’. (Heffez & Raydan, 2014). This is especially pertinent as claims arise that he is deliberately causing ‘further damage to the city in order to maximise the redevelopment potential of the plots of land which will no longer be identifiable by their owners’ (Bloch, 2015). This, to some extent, is outside the remit of international agencies but whilst local and national politics are out of bounds, the lives of those on the ground can be transformed by carefully planned and hard fought for projects that in many cases may need to be internationally led in order to be constructed.

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HOW CAN THE CITY BE BUILT IN ORDER TO HELP STIFLE ETHNIC AND RELIGIOUS TENSIONS?

“What emerged is the adamant opposition to the reconstruction of some buildings.

Aleppians know what they don’t want, before knowing what they want” Al-Hakam Shaar, Aleppian Researcher, CCNR (Marsi, 2015)

Whilst there has been tensions between the Shia and Sunni populations of the city ever since Hafez al-Assad came to power in 1971, this conflict saw these religious sects falling on both sides of the conflict. This is between the people and the government, a class war which requires an awareness of a whole other typology of building, including that of the military and regime, to be avoided in order to ease tensions in the region. The survey responses also rejected the rebuilding of the Municipality palace and other structures commissioned by the Ba’ath party, which were closely connected to Hafez al Assad, and the election of his son Bashar. (The Aleppo Project, 2015) There is a decision to be made as to whether the projects and investments are geographically evenly distributed in order to avoid further tensions among the inhabitants or that East Aleppo -underdeveloped and neglected even before the war– receives greater attention than the western side. According to Templer and Mostegel, reconnecting these sides is going to be one of the most important goals of reconstruction. (Templer, 2015)

WHAT BUILDINGS SHOULD BE FOCUSED ON FIRST? (Fig.16)

Syria’s national recovery will depend in large part on whether its industrial powerhouse Aleppo can bounce back. (Cambanis, 2015)

The next priority after peace is self-sufficiency. (M.K.Bacchus, 1987) Up until the conflict, Aleppo was one of the main tourist attractions in Syria, with the continuation of vast amounts of the commerce that had been making the city famous for centuries. In fact, the ‘Aleppian traders plied their wares in Turkey, Iraq, the Levant, and all the way south to the Arabian peninsula’, with the city’s workshops exporting ‘millions of dollars’ worth of textiles and other goods every week.

By 2013, however, the city’s water and power supply were under the control of ISIS, ‘with [the] vestiges of basic services’ currently remaining in Regime controlled areas whilst the Rebel-held territories are mostly depopulated. Over the past five years, frontiers and boundaries have changed leaving ‘river[s] of rubble’ running through the city.’ And whilst Figure 16 demonstrates the desires of the refugees to rebuild hospitals, housing and schools, it shows a significant lack of other essential infrastructure. It is hard to imagine that many will remain long in a city with little job prospects and whilst it may not be in the remit of ‘reconstruction’, the industry of the city is important to its heritage and, perhaps, vital in returning the economy and even the culture to some remnant of what existed previously.

Al-Hakam Shaar perfectly describes the achievable expectations for Aleppo; ‘The city would have changed even without the war in the span of five years, so we cannot expect it to be exactly the same. What we want, though, is for it to give off the same feeling.” (Marsi, 2015).

Shaar talks of recreating the Aleppian Souq, whose reconstruction could have a direct comparison to that of Beirut, which, for many residents, was certainly not successful, confirmed by Makarem’s comment on ‘the emptiness and soullessness of the area’ (Makarem, 2013)

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CONCLUSION Although current reports suggest that the battle over Aleppo is now one between the rebels and the government forces, with the Russian air strikes driving off the Islamic state6, the outcome of the conflict is still unclear, thus leaving the fate of Aleppo in a somewhat indeterminable state. Nevertheless the cases above have shown the importance of forward planning is vital. And the key is knowing which questions to ask, and what information can feasibly be obtained at that point in time. The ability to use the available human resources, as the various surveys have done, allows any organisations involved to focus their efforts on solving the priorities of the people, for as these studies demonstrate there is an undeniable need for community involvement at all stages. Such work comes with a caveat though, that the process will need repeating on the ground in Aleppo where results are likely to differ and change as the conflict continues. Tracking these shifts could be vital to marking changing opinions and political support for each party.

Furthermore, considering the conclusion obtained by the report on the politicisation of UNESCO, that there are ‘close political and economic relationships between countries [and] committee members’ behaviour,’ regarding the inscribing of sites on to the World Heritage List, and having already discussed the side-stepping of politicians in the reconstruction of Mostar, it would be pertinent to assume that the current heritage process, at least in the studies shown, has a strong top-down approach. Although difficult to change, this must be assessed and exposed to questioning with hope of development.

However, most importantly, whilst this dissertation first set out to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of varying heritage practices and the effects they have on their corresponding cities, it has hopefully demonstrated both the complicated nature of our relationship with the built environment and the utter importance that a viable and, even, healthy city resurfaces from this conflict. This needs to be noted, especially in Aleppo, where with an estimated rebuild cost stretching into the hundreds of billions, and no end in sight as yet for the conflict, it could take several decades to get the city back on its feet. But we hope that the time can be used wisely, in exploring all of the key issues well in advance to develop an extensive plan of a city rebuilt for its people, by its people, and in allowing its residents to understand that the Aleppo of the future can never be the Aleppo of the past, and that it should not try to be.

6 Reports indicate that the Russians will withdraw.

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