>Design Technology, Pole M5, RN4-38, Phone: (408) 765-5816
Below is a repost of an article I posted on SCL sometime ago; for the benefit
of who might have missed it. Although the article does not provide the
full picture on the conflict, it does, however, offer an initiation
on the subject.
-------------------Original Posting Starts Here -------------------
] This article first appeared in
] The Toronto Star on Dec 5, 1992.
] It is being reposted on SCL without
] Permission.
] The article has been retyped and
] thus may contain some added typographical
] errors.
The article in the newspaper adds up to one full page and a quarter. Where
the first page of that section contains a 24 x 17.5 cm picture of a half
naked child pushing a wheelbarrel down inbetween the ruins of Downtown Beirut.
On one side of the photograph they inserted the big title " A new war
has broken out over the derelict heart of the city."
The second page starts with a big bold headline that says
" WAR OVER BEIRUT'S DOWNTOWN IS MONEY vs. HISTORY"
Below that title three photographs of Beirut were included with the
following caption,
" PAST, PRESENT AND PROPOSED: Martyr's Square before the war, now, and as
Prime Minister Rafic Hariri wants it to be."
R E B U I L D I N G
B E I R U T
A NEW WAR HAS BROKEN OUT OVER THE DERELICT HEART OF THE CITY.
By Allan Thompson
TORONTO STAR
BEIRUT- In the days before sarajevo and
Magadishu Beirut was the world's
heart of darkness.
This City, the principal battle
ground in Lebanon's 15-year
civil war, seemed bent on self
destruction.
Now there is a battle over
Beirut's reconstruction.
Much of what survived in its once-glorious downtown, its Ottoman souks and
ancient history, may be swept aside as one man transforms the heart of the
city onto what critics call a generic metropolis.
The construction magnate leading the private sector rebuilding plan, billionaireRafic Hariri, is Lebanon's new prime minister.
"I want to go down in history as the man who resurrected Beirut," he told
reporters in August.
Hariri's vision for rebuilding Lebanon starts in downtown Beirut, in the
derelict heart of the city that was the pearl of the Mediterranean, the
Paris of the Middle East. the city of 1 million nestled beneath the mountains
had deserved its glowing reputation, its streets lined with graceful
buildings and its sand beaches streaching out along the eastern
Mediterranean.
Then came the civil war that killed nearly 150,000 people and caused an
estimated $25 billion in damage. Two years after the end of the fighting
in Lebanon, life has returned to what passes as normal in most of Beirut.
Electricity service is out more than not, most houses now have generators
and their own water tanks and telephones are unpredictable at best.
But the streets are once again clotted with traffic, and despite inflation
running at 100% and a devaluated currency eating up buying power,
there's a construction boom goin on. But the construction boom hasn't
yet reached Beirut's old downtown. Things are about to change, and not
everyone is convinced it's for the better.
In a project dreamed up by the wealthy Hariri long before he became
prime minister, a 1.5 square kilometer area of the downtown would be taken
over by a government created real estate company. The company would restore
buildings it deems salvagable and oversee a staggering 3.7 million square
meters (40 million square feet) of planned reconstruction over two
decades, a scheme that would cost billions.
"In this project there is a sort of selective memory, they keep only
what they want to keep of the old Beirut," said prominent architect Jad Tabet,
a vocal opponent of the plan. " I think it's very dangerous, you cann't
create the heart of the city this way," said Tabet, member of a small but
vocal group of architects, writers, sociologists, artists and other
intellectuals opposing the plan.
"Restoring the memory of a city is not just creating something to be seen
by visitors," Tabet said. "They are creating a sort of an island for the
rich. They keep aspects of the city that go along with this scheme
and erase the rest."
But Hariri's backers disagree. "We will have some tall buildings here,
that is for sure. To be economically viable it has to be that way," Said
Nasser Chammaa, Hariri's representative on the board of directorsthat will
oversee the project. " You cann't just renovate everything, This is a
city, not a museum," Chammaa said.
"There is the general mistrust that exists in this city. People are
not used to corporations of this size, they think there's some kind of
scheme behind it."
"But I think this plan keeps whatever building it was possible to keep.
Of course any building can be maintained but at such enormous cost__who
will pay for it?."
Opponents Hariri's plan say he is refashioning central Beirut in his own
image, destroying precious examples of Ottoman architecture and would forever
alter the morphology of the downtown by cutting across it with wide avenues
and by putting up tall, western style skyscrapers.
But supporters of Hariri's plan say it will create a world class trading
and financial center to revitalize not only Beirut, but all of Lebanon.
And as if there weren't enought ruins above the ground in beirut, beneath
the surface there is believed to be an archeological gold mine of remains
from ancient Greek, Roman and phoenician times.
The United Nations UNESCO has an agreement with Hariri to carry out
digs in a restricted area of the downtown but want to be able to unearth the
entire trove.
The irony of the debate over morphology, archeology and urban planning in
what was a battlefield for a decade and a half is lost on no one. The
shells and bullets of the warring sectarian militias had little regard for
architecture- from the Ottoman, French or any other period- when they were
pouring down during the civil war.
THE GREEN Line that divided Muslim and Christian sectors tore right through
the old downtown, once the home to the world's fifth-largest banking centre,
palm-lined squares, an opera house, theatres, cinemas and covered souks dating
to the Ottoman times.
The heart of downtown is Martyr's Square. still pictured on the bedraggled
"Greetings from Beirut" postcards on sale in some shops. Today, a bullet-
riddled memorial to heroes of Lebanon's independance struggle stands in
the tatered square, its statue of a torch-bearing woman looking out in
a frozen stare over ghostly ruins. There's a statue of a man standing at
her side, with his arms blown off like the Venus de Milo and bullet
holes through the heart.
Tourists come here now to look at the devastation and vendors hawk posters
of the square as it appeared in its glory days before the war.
n original versions of the master plan, Henri edde, chief of Dar al
Handasah, the planning firm hired by Hariri, had proposed keeping the Martyr's
Square as a focal point. But Hariri wanted something different. If He gets
his way, the Martyr's Square will no longer be a square at all, but will
be blasted open all the way down to the Mediterranean Sea in a grand boulevard
meant to rival the Champs Elysees in Paris and set the cornerstone for Hariri's
new Beirut, indeed, of his new Lebanon.
"Hariri said, 'I want it as wide as the Champs Elysees in Paris,'" one source
recounted. So planners at dar al Handasah took a map of Paris and calculated
the width of Champs Elysees at 80 meters. They drew in their boulevard at
the same width. Just to be sure, edde asked a relative in Paris to go out
and measure the boulevard. It was less than 80 meters wide. Edde reported
the news to Hariri and suggested the extra space could be better used.
"No, let it be wider then the Champs Elysee, all the better," Hariri replied,
according to the source.
Hariri, who made his fortune in construction in Saudi Arabia, wher he is a
friend of king Fahd and also holds citizenship, is credited with masterminding
the political accord that ended the civil war- called the Taif accord- from
behind the scenes. Famous for spending millions to build schools and
hospitals, finance scholarships and restore historic sites, Hariri had already
bankrolled a major revitalization of major downtown buildings in 1982 and
1983 during a lull in fighting, only to see them blown apart when the civil
war was rekindled.
By the fall of 1991, with the war apparently over, the bankrupt Lebanese
government effectively turned the downtown over to the powerful Hariri, who
had offered to oversee a reconstruction plan. At his own expense, Hariri
paid Dar al Handasah to draft a master plan for reconstruction, a plan which
very clearly lays out which buildings are to be restored and which demolished.
Technically, the reconstruction effort is co-ordinated by the Council for
Development and Reconstruction (CDR), a government agency created in 1977
but put in a straitjacket over the years by recurring, increasingly
violent clashes between factions in Lebanon's civil war.
But the CDR is run by a former Hariri employee and works closely with Hariri's
construction company, Oger Liban. The CDR last year proposed legislation
to create a private real estate company that would take over the downtown.
Property owners would receive shares in the company in return for relinquishing
ownership. Outside investors could then pump money into the company up
to a level that would match the stake held by the original property owners.
The investors would get shares in the company in return.
The plan although challanged in the courts by some disgruntled property owners, was approved by parliament last year and the real estate company will be formed
as soon as evaluation committees can establish what the downtown properties are
worth. Many buildings have already been demolished. Hariri's peopel say
they were a safety hazard. The critics of the Hariri plan say it was to get
the buildings out of the way so there could be no question of their
restoration.
The master plan envisions restorating about 400,000 square meters (4.3 million
sq. ft.) of old buildings, mostly surrounding Place L'Etoile, where the
parliament sits. Two new 40-storey skyscrapers- taller than anything in
Lebanon- would form a world trade centre on the waterfront. A row of 10-storey
luxury condos would line the shore encircling a new green area built atop
a now vacant landfill area. The landfill is made up of war rubble pushed
into the sea during the last decade.
Crowded, narrow streets would give way to rows of mid-rise buildings and,
in all, the whole downtown would have 30 new buildings up to 35 storeys.
The old Ottoman souks with their arched alleyways, which Hariri's engineers
maintain are beyond restoration, woudl be destroyed, but "recreated" in
a sort of shopping centre environment.
"We think it is dengerous when you havethe heart of a city owned
by one big monopoly company," said architect Jad Tabet, who lives in Paris
but visits Beirut Often. Tabet and others worried Hariri and his
associates could end up owning most of the downtown as the real estate company
sells parcels. Hariri's representative Nasser Chammaa insists the prime
minister's shake will not exceed the 10 per cent maximum prescribed under
the law.
Tabet and his group organized seminars last year to debate the plan and used
their contacts to leak to the newspapers confidential documents from the
Beirut urban planning department, which was critical of the plan.
The group has now published a book, documenting Hariri's reconstruction
proposal. The book is being serialized by the influential Arabic-language
daily, As-Safir, which said Hariri's rise to the office of prime minister
warranted another close look at the construction plan.
Tabet and his colleagues are philosphical. " Our pressure has led to
something," Tabet said, although he admitted the basic thrust of Hariri's
plan won't be changed. " it will now be difficult for them to destroy
more buildings, they will find it more difficult now to do that because
we're a thorn in their side."
Contruction will likely begin sometime next year, after the real estate
company formally begins operating when investors join in.
"But what good does it do us if we build with stones and destroy people?."
Najah Wakim, a member of parliament and outspoken critic of Hariri said
in parliamentary debates last month. Thousands now live as squatters in
the crowded alleyways slated for the destruction. WHile Hariri has promised
to build them housing elsewhere, critics say the fragile sense of community
that survived a brutal war will be erased.
A few hundred meters from the parliament building, the proud statue in the
Martyr's Square holds its torch high. Its frozen stare may soon be looking
at a new Beirut, down a broad boulevard that runs right to the sea.
