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Full-Text Articles in Architecture
The Architect Citizen: The Nature Of Civic Engagement In Postwar Reconstruction Projects In Lebanon, Marwan Ghandour
The Architect Citizen: The Nature Of Civic Engagement In Postwar Reconstruction Projects In Lebanon, Marwan Ghandour
Marwan Ghandour
SOLIDERE, Wa`d, and Nahr elBared Camp are three urban reconstruction projects in Lebanon that targeted neighborhoods destroyed through armed conflict in the 1970-80’s, 2006 and 2007 respectively. Even though these urban areas were produced over decades of multiple social interactions and economic considerations, reconstruction projects regenerates the whole area within contemporary political and social prerogatives, which may diminish the diversity of actors and discourses in the process. Along these lines the three projects illustrate three different approaches for urban production revealing a different relationship between the developer, the architect and the user community. Depending on who one asks, the three …
On Cities And Designers: A Baalbeck Story, Marwan Ghandour
On Cities And Designers: A Baalbeck Story, Marwan Ghandour
Marwan Ghandour
Twentieth-century masterplans of Baalbeck tourism and fantasies of modernism and classical antiquity are privileged over the present everyday. How can an alternative be envisioned?
Spatial Erasure: Reconstruction Projects In Beirut, Marwan Ghandour, Mona Fawaz
Spatial Erasure: Reconstruction Projects In Beirut, Marwan Ghandour, Mona Fawaz
Marwan Ghandour
Often associated with processes of healing, postwar re-construction projects may be less related to the pre-destruction phase than to the actual act of destruction. This, at least, is what the Lebanese case suggests. In this essay, we argue that the spatial erasure initiated by war destruction is consolidated during postwar reconstruction. We developed this argument by analyzing two of the main postwar reconstruction projects that have marked Beirut’s urbanization since the end of its civil war in 1990. The first project, the reconstruction of Beirut’s downtown, was undertaken starting 1994 by a private real-estate company, Solidere [1], extends over …