Beirut’s Broken Egg Master Thesis University of Kent Marlowe School of Architecture Masters of Architecture & Cities
Beirut’s Br
roken Egg Master Thesis Khaled Sedki
For Hasan, Sara, Jim, Mario, Mary, Charlie, Antony, Stuart, Milenda and Raafat. For mother and sister.
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The Syrian Revolution(s)
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Content Prologue
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Act 1
13 18 22
Act 2
33 38 42
Act 3
49 51 55
Act 4 69 73 Epilogue Appendix Bibliography Image references Links
85 89 105 107 108
Intermission Beirut The Egg The Theatre Intermission Beirut The Theatre The Egg Intermission Beirut The Theatre The Egg Intermission The Theatre The Egg Intermission Suspension of Disbelief
In a three-act play, each act usually has a different tone to it. The most commonly used, but not always, is the first act having a lot of introductory elements, the second act can usually be the darkest with the antagonists having a greater encompass, while the third act is the resolution and the protagonists prevailing.
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Prologue This study scripts the life cycle of a building as it performs the changing theatrics of a schizophrenic city. In 1965, Lebanese architect Joseph Philippe Karam was commissioned to design a building which program sums up the thriving tendencies among people in the Lebanese capital. His design was less influenced by the functional program of the Egg than his interpretation of Beirut. Karam who was born at the first declaration of a Lebanese state, graduated a year after the independance from the French mandate, and died just before the civil war, had grasped the historical cradle of Beirut as it grew into herself. Beirut was able to reconcile its contradictions and use them to generate a force that leads it towards its ultimate capacity. Karam’s Beirut demonstrated an optimistic view of itself as it challenged its inhabitants to keep pace with its evolutionary discourse. Karam was in the same pace, Beirut was fertile, and when he was offered the opportunity to author a building in its most vibrant of setting he contested what remained of her laws and designed the Egg which gave form to the city’s aspirations. It carried the embryo of a possible Beirut. One that vows by the intention of its creator to represent sincerely the course of the city where it sits. For better or worse. Years after it was executed, Karam departed and Beirut which almost realized its visions, suddenly diverted to fulfill another possibility of itself. For the following decades Beirut fell back into a historical cycle it kept repeating for many years, one that alternates between Utopia and Dystopia. But for the first time it sailed according to its own whim, testing extremities within the domain of its own will and intuitive progression. The Egg, made to be a theatre, had become an actor within the city’s plot of events constantly switching roles adapting to radically changing contexts and conditions. This thesis narrates the performance(s) incarniated by the Egg throughout this hisotrical cycle exposing both the dialectic relationship between the building and the city and suggesting the Egg as a hypothesis of Beirut, one that depicted the city in all its changing theatrics. The thesis is written in the form of a three-act play indicating three periods of this cycle; pre-war optimism, war period and post-war reconstruction. A fourth act is a virtual extension to its possible roles, or perhaps its death.
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Beirut “..and he who becomes master of a city used to being free and does not destroy her can expect to be destroyed by her, because always she has as pretext in rebellion the name of liberty and her old customs, which never through either length of time or benefits are forgotten, and in spite of anything that can be done or foreseen, unless citizens are disunited or dispersed, they do not forget that name and those institutions...” Machiavelli, The Prince. Whilst films by Pasolini and Bergman were playing in movie theatres at the once fortified centre of Beirut on one 13th of an April, 1975 years after the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, a driver refused to divert his path away from the Church of Deliverance in East Beirut’s ‘Ain el-Rammaneh for the VIPs attending the baptism of a new born baby. He was driving six PLO fighters. They were Christian Phalangist militants. The driver was shot and so was the father of the baptized child and three bodyguards in a quick retaliation. By mid-day Christian militias took the streets and ‘Ain el-Rammaneh was staged for the incident which diverted the next 15 years of Lebanon’s history: The Red Dodge Bus was on its way to Sabra refugee camp passing through ‘Ain el-Rammaneh -- The militants were there, Palestinians in the bus, the bullets were shot, the 29 passengers were killed, and the rest is history. Top: Figure 2.1. Screenshot from Ingmar Bergman’s film Det Sjunde inseglet, “why do people always torment themselves?” Bottom: Figure 2.2 The Red DodgeBus.
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Lebanese Civil War 75-90 Antagonisms: Christian v. Muslim paramilitaries; Lebanese Front v. Lebanese National Movement;
Nationalist v. Pan-Arab factions; proGovernment v. rebel fractions Belligerents: Lebanese Front, South Lebanon Army, Israel, Tigers
Militia, Marada Movement, Lebanese National Movement, Lebanese National Resistence Front, Palestine Liberation Organization,
Kurdistan Workers’ Party, Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia, Amal Movement, Hezbollah, Islamic Unification Movement,
Lebanese Armed Forces, Arab Deterrant Force, United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, US, France, Multinational Force in Lebanon, Syria
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Appendix Picture taken by Sara Ghoussoub for the purpose of this thesis.
Beirut Catalogue of images from the resilient city between the 1930s and 2012
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Beirut (30’s - 50’s)
Beirut (50’s - 70’s)
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Beirut (70’s - 90’s)
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Beirut (90’s - Now)
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Bibliography Virilio, P. (1989) War and Cinema: The Logistics of Perception, London: Verso. Virilio, P. (1991) The Aesthetics of Disappearance, New York: Semiotext(e) Virilio, P. (1994) Bunker Archeology, New York: Princeton Architectural Press Khatib, L. (2008) Lebanese Cinema: Imagining the Civil War and Beyond, London: I.B. Tauris Darwish, M. (1982) Memory for Forgetfulness, Berkeley, Ca.: University of California Press Tschumi, B. (1994) Architecture and Disjunction, Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press Tschumi, B. (2000) Event-Cities 3, Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press Rosenfeld, G.D. (2000) Munich and Memory: Architecture, Monuments and the Legacy of the Third Reich, Berkeley, Calif: University of California Press Woods, L. Divided Cities: Belfast, Beirut, Jerusalem, Mostar, and Nicosia Vale, L.J., Campanella, T.J. (2005) The Resilient City: How Modern Cities Recover From Disaster, New York: Oxford University PRESS Saliba, R. (2004) Beirut City Center Recovery – The Foch-Allenby and Etoile Conservation Area Holllis, E. (2010) The Secret Lives of Buildings: from the Parthenon to the Vegas Strip in Thirteen Stories, London: Portobello Bogue, R. (2003) Deleuze on Cinema, New York: Routledge Calvino, I. (1979) Invisible Cities, London: Picador Alameddine, R. (1998) Koolaids, Great Britain: Abacus Sharr, A. (2010) The sedimentation of memory, The Journal of Architecture, 15:4, 499-515 Klein, A. (2011) Beirut’s Brood, PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art, 33:1, 63-70 Makdesi, S. (1997) Laying Clainl to Beirut: Urban Narrative and Spatial Identity in the Age of Solidere, Chicago Journals, 23:3, 661-705 Larkin, C. (2009) Reconstructing and Deconstructing Beirut: Space, Memory and Lebanese Youth, Divided Cities/Contested States No.8/2009 De Cauter, L. (2011) Towards a Phenomenology of Civil War: Hobbes Meets Benjamin in Beirut, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 35:2, 421-430 Carlson, M. (1996) Performance: A Critical Introduction, New York: Routledge Whybrow, N. (2010) Performance and the Contemporary City, New York: Palgrave Macmillan
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Online References Cola w Calsat Blog Post http://hishamad.wordpress.com/2011/07/27/save-the-egg-saboun-cinema-city-center-or-whatever-it-is/ Save the Egg Causes (2077 Members) http://www.causes.com/causes/273318-save-the-egg Saving the Egg Documentary Short Video, University Project http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaYVIrFafBM Interview in iLoubnan with Dania Bdeir (Cause Director) http://www.causes.com/causes/273318-save-the-egg/actions/243737 The Egg (Fete de la Musique) Video by artist Jo Baaklini http://vimeo.com/5284523 Saving BCC “The Egg” Petition on Change.org against Lebanese Government and Solidere http://www.change.org/petitions/saving-beirut-city-center-the-egg Save the Egg Petition on Gopetition.com against ADIH and Solidere http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/save-the-egg.html What Should We Do About the Egg? Article on Beirutspring.com http://beirutspring.com/blog/2011/07/27/%E2%9D%8A-what-should-we-do-about-the-egg/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_ medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+beirutspring%2Ffb_feed+%28Beirut+Spring%29 Beirut in an Egg Shell Article in the Executive Magazine http://www.executive-magazine.com/getarticle.php?article=11933 Beirut City Centre to be Demolished Post on Blog +961 http://www.plus961.com/2011/07/beirut-city-center-to-be-demolished-in-the-few-coming-days/ City Centre Building Article on Now Lebanon http://www.nowlebanon.com/NewsArchiveDetails.aspx?ID=5679 Save the Egg Post on Zawya Blog http://blogs.zawya.com/alexandra/091023075457/Save the Egg Group on Facebook Facebook Group Save the Egg https://www.facebook.com/groups/70118464656/ El Hal Romancy Music Video by Lebanese band Mashrou’ Leila http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbO9bv4rBnU Architecture and Politics in Lebanon Post by Deen Sharp http://deensharp.wordpress.com/2009/10/06/architecture-and-politics-in-lebanon/ ArchNet Aga Khan web-based community Digital Library entry http://blogs.zawya.com/alexandra/091023075457/ The Beirut City Centre Building FLAVIE AA Diploma Unit9 post http://archnet.org/library/sites/one-site.jsp?site_id=9581 The Battle for Beirut’s Buildings Article in the Guradian by Deen Sharp http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/apr/01/beirut-buildings-dubai-skyscraper Returning to Beirut Wall Street Journal Article on Bernard Khoury’s Proposal http://www.armeniandiaspora.com/showthread.php?5840-Returning-to-Beirut-An-Architect-Has-Designs-on-Its-Future Solidere Denies Demolition of Beirut’s Egg Article in the Daily Star Magazine http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Local-News/2011/Jul-27/Solidere-denies-demolition-of-Beiruts-egg.ashx#axzz21aYCsBLb
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Images / Graphics All Graphics,Illustrations and collages by Khaled Sedki unless otherwise noted. Large images of the Egg on full-spreads by Sara Ghoussoub taken for the purpose of this thesis. Images of Beirut during and before the war are found online in many photo archives in Beirut. Most have no copyrights nor reference and when using reverse image search hundreds of results appear with no official archives. Introductory images on full spreads 3, 4 and 5 are courtesy of Akram Zaatari and Arab Image Foundation. Figure 1.4 P1.16 Courtesy of Dr. Robert Saliba, Beirut City Centre Recovhery Figures 1.8, 1.10 P.123 Cornelia Krafft performance 777, Courtesy of L.E. Bizri Figure 2.1 P2.33 Screenshot from Ingmar Bergman’s film, Det Sjude Isegletc Figure 2.4 P2.41 Page scan from Lebbeus Woods, Divided Cities Figure 2.6 P.2.45 Artwork by Magdalena Jetelovå r Figure 3.4 P3.53 Courtesy of Solidere Figure 4.2 P4. 57 Courtesy of Bernard Tschumi Figure 4.3 P4.58 Courtesy of video artist Rui Vilela Figure 4.6 P4.60 Courtesy of ADH and Solidere Figure 4.7 P4.61 Scan of Wall Street Journal Figures 4.8, 4.9, 4.10, 4.11 P4.62 - P4.64 Courtesy of Bernard Khoury, DW5 Figure 4.17 P4.71 Courtesy of Farid Noufaily Figure 4.18 P4.72 Courtesy of Adam Sharr, Architecture Journal Figures 4.20, 4.21 P4.73 Courtesy of Farid Noufaily Illustration on P4.74 Courtesy of Mazen Kerbaj Spread P.75, 76 From music video by Blend, Belong Spread P.79, 80 From Rui Vilela Spread P.81, 82 Short documentary by Dania Bdeir Painting P.89, 90 by Sara Ghoussoub for the purpose of this thesis
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KMH SEDKI 2012
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