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At the Edge of the CityBook Brochure

Bringing back Beirut’s park Horsh Al-Sanawbarto the collective memory and public debate

At the Edge of the City does a painstaking job of laying out all the issues surrounding the current state of the Horsh. Its writers are impressively dexterous in their combination of theoretical and poetic registers…Yet, what makes this book so wonderful is its emphasis on the solution, not the problem.

Michael Teague, Al Jadid 2012

August 2012

At the Edge of the CityBook Brochure

Bringing back Beirut’s park Horsh Al-Sanawbar to the collective memory and public debate

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“We are witnessing in recent years the emergence of a third generation of researchers, born during the war, even during reconstruction, as evidenced by two books published by the Heinrich Böll Foundation. They share a common focus on what can be called the new front lines that divide the city [Beirut] from 2006-2007 and the events of May 2008…At the Edge of the City…is marked by tension but also touches upon themes inherited from years of reconstruction, as the issue of capacity planning to recreate shared public spaces…Anthropology, sociology, geography and history intertwine and revolve with visuals and artistic interventions, in part ephemeral, and proposals for architects, designers and landscape architects…Another striking feature characteristic of the positioning of these authors is their radical criticism particularly with regard to urban planning, which played a central role in the normative discourse on reconstruction and reconciliation in post-war Beirut.”

Éric Verdeil, Métropolitiques, 2012

Susanne Lane, Main Gate, 2011

Michael Teague, Al Jadid, 2012

Kaelen Wilson-Goldie,The National, 2010

“At the Edge of the City does a painstaking job of laying out all the issues surrounding the current state of the Horsh. Its writers are impressively dexterous in their combination of theoretical and poetic registers, and the book provides all manner of visual aids (charts, graphs, photos, maps, and even a DVD) to help the reader understand how the Horsh is one of Beirut’s most necessary public goods…Yet, what makes this book so wonderful is its emphasis on the solution, not the problem. The authors spend far more time providing concrete and highly plausible scenarios for the park’s re-admittance into Beirut’s public life…All in all, “At the Edge of the City” is not a book for the casual reader, but should be very carefully read by every person interested in thinking through the problems that beset Lebanese society. The authors present an inarguable case for strong civic institutions, and in so doing offer much valuable insight about how to begin to overcome the puzzle of Lebanon’s 18 officially recognized sects.”

“The current crop of books on Beirut has been produced by writers who have few first-hand memories of the Civil War…Their arguments about the city are psychogeographic, channeling Guy Debord and the Situationist International, concerning themselves with graffiti and the history of neighbourhoods outside the city centre…Fadi Shayya’s At the Edge of the City…enlists 40 contributors to engage a single site…In Shayya’s words, the closure of the park is “not right, not constitutional, and not just,” and his book attempts to imagine and project possibilities for its public reactivation.”

As an urbanist, Shayya distinguishes between what German sociologist Jurgen Habermas calls “a public sphere” and public spaces. He notes that although Beirut includes different social and political groups, encourages a free press and freedom of thought, and has a “rich and dynamic public sphere,” it has very few meeting and mass gathering places. “We only see people in masses during protests when they are all of the same “color” (either March 14 or March 8; either poor laborers or elitist heritage preservationists; etc.),” says Shayya.

Engaged citizens and professionals like Fadi Shayya and others continue to advocate for public spaces in Beirut—places where everyone is welcome and where people from different socio-economic, religious, and political backgrounds can come together.”

Book Reviews

Kristen Hope Burchill,LAU Magazine, 2010

Annie Slemrod,The Daily Star, 2011“…the collection proposes a new discourse about Beirut’s park and public space in the city. It aims to “provide a platform to contest the existing governance of Horsh al-Sanawbar and to bring forward a well-informed public space public policy agenda”…At the Edge of the City encompasses so many different types of contributions that it can be tough to swallow as a whole.”

“An emerging group of architects and graphic designers are mixing their aesthetic imperatives with a critical assessment of Beirut’s ongoing “postwar” reconstruction. Postwar, in this case, refers to both the 30-year civil war that tore up the country, and to the more recent 2006 war with Israel. These designers are changing the visual and spatial landscape of the capital, and locating their perspectives within a growing malaise that views the city — currently characterized by a wave of gentrified construction, privatization and environmental degradation — as increasingly out of tune with its own inhabitants.”

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Foreword by George Arbid • Design by Danny KhouryEdited by Fadi Shayya

http://attheedgeofthecity.wordpress.com

REINHABITING PUBLIC SPACE TOWARD THE RECOVERY OF BEIRUT'S HORSH AL-SANAWBAR

Foreword by George Arbid • Design by Danny KhouryEdited by Fadi Shayya

http://attheedgeofthecity.wordpress.com

REINHABITING PUBLIC SPACE TOWARD THE RECOVERY OF BEIRUT'S HORSH AL-SANAWBAR

Shayya, Fadi, ed. At the Edge of the City: Reinhabiting Public Space toward the Recovery of Beirut’s Horsh Al-Sanawbar. 1st Edition. Beirut: DISCURSIVE FORMATIONS, 2010.

Beirut’s urban spatial structure might not be very different from cities that suffered conflict and division such as Belfast, Berlin, Brussels, Jerusalem, Nicosia and Johannesburg. However, Beirut certainly has one of the most intense and ongoing cases of spatial territorialization where the city constitutes a complex confessional, political and class agglomeration. The city’s public space generally follows the same principles of this territoriality, and its public places are either contained within homogeneous territories or rendered ‘liminal spaces’ or ‘no man’s land’ in-between territories.

This is the case of Beirut’s largest urban park Horsh Al-Sanawbar whose triangular urban morphology lies along the civil war’s demarcation line, at the periphery of the municipal limits and amidst different confessional and class territories of Beirut city and its suburbs. The park has been closed to the public since its rehabilitation in the 1990s with French technical and financial assistance provided by the Regional Council of Île-de-France to the Municipality of Beirut. Except for an approximate 15% hardscape area, a few limited trial periods and a special entry permit available to a few residents from the City Administrator, the insufficient municipal governance for the park and public space—including strategic planning, operation, management and policy-making—is accompanied by a culture of division and the absence of collective and city memory.

To address the closure of the park and provide a critical reading of public space in Beirut, the advocacy research At the Edge of the City: Reinhabiting Public Space toward the Recovery of Beirut’s Horsh Al-Sanawbar was produced and published in 2010 by the collaborative platform DISCURSIVE FORMATIONS. The research collects historical accounts of the park and employs multidisciplinary analysis and a practice-based approach in reading

the complexities of its spatial formation to bring back the park to collective memory and public debate. The park space is conceptualized as a continuation of the city’s cultural and infrastructural landscapes rather than looking at it as an isolated, recreational, urban program.

The publication was realized with the financial assistance of the Heinrich Böll Stiftung Middle East Office bringing together 40 contributors to address space, place, design, memory, citizenship, social practices, discourse, urban governance, activism and environment in Beirut. Since March 2010, the editor and authors have been presenting the work at different venues to raise awareness and prompt advocacy and policy suggestions. Besides popular media and book reviews, venues included the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs, the Lebanese University, American University of Beirut, the Lebanese American University, the Polypod Creative Series, the Festival of Lebanese Art Books and This Is Not A Gateway Festival (London). The book was released within the framework of Beirut World Book Capital 2010, and since then it has been a reference for academic research and theses and for civil society efforts and campaigns.

The Mayor of Beirut announced in February 2012 that the park will be open to the public for a new trial period in conjunction with a municipal initiative to renovate 3 major public gardens in Beirut (Sanayeh, Sioufi and St. Nicholas). Among enthusiastic advocates, DISCURSIVE FORMATIONS presented to the Municipality a Strategy and Policy Concept Note to open, operate and manage the park. Still, nothing guarantees the sustainable opening of the park and equal access of all people to its public space. What is certain is that public space will always be a space for contestation and socio-political negotiation.

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ForewordHyding the Park > George Arbid

IntroductionThe Discursive Formation of Reinhabiting & Recovery > Fadi Shayya

Part One: An Intricate Urban Context• Beirut Became Her Sea. So, Let’s Plant the Sea! > Bilal Khbeiz

• From Woods to Park: A Historical & Ethnographic Investigation of Programming the Landscape of the Horsh > Fadi Shayya

• Kill Him, Crush Him: No Trespassing in the Woods > Bachar Al-Amine

• Re: No Choice > Fouad Asfour

• A Transforming Landscape > Images courtesy GIS Transport & Directorate of Geographic Affairs

• Evolution of the Horsh > Infographics by Fadi Shayya, Lina Abou Reslan, & Nancy Hamad

• Beyrouth - Promenade des Pins (circa 1895) > Postcard by Anonymous

• Seeing the Imaginary: A Story behind Pine Nuts > Lasse Lau

• Silent Witnesses: Old Pine Trees of the Horsh > Photos by Danny Khoury

• Pine Trees Don’t Make Pine Nuts Anymore > Painting by Sumayyah Samaha

Part Two: Heterotopias of Park & City• On Modernity, Urbanity, & Urban Dwellers > Hussein Yaakoub

• The Real Versus the Imagined City: A Traveler’s Notes on Imagining Public Space > Fadi Shayya

• Zone 9: The Horsh in the Master Plan of Beirut > Master plan courtesy the Municipality of Beirut

• Thoughts on the Horsh on a Sleepless Night: Dichotomies of Space, Values, Ethics, & Us > Jana Nakhal

• Stitching the Scar: The Horsh as a Site for “Collected Memories” > Rola Idris

• More Green Space Disappears: ISF to Take 9,000 Square Meters of Horsh Beirut: The Municipality has Agreed that a Temporary Police Station Can Be Built > Nada Bakri

• From Non-Sense to Economic-Sense > Lana Salman

Book Table of Contents

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• Excluding & Excluded: The Nature & Processes of Exclusion from the City > Tara Mahfoud

• Odyssey in the Park: A Journey of Understanding Women & Public Space > Nancy Hamad, Sara AbouGhazal, & Jana Nakhal

• Horsh Mosaic > Infographics by François Eid

• What He Didn’t Tell Me or Perhaps What He Didn’t Know… > Ghassan Maasri

• Open Public Spaces in Beirut > Infographics by Fadi Shayya, Lina Abou Reslan, & Nancy Hamad

• Terra Verte > Marwan Rechmaoui

Part Three: Transient Citizenship, Transient Public Space• The Empty Park: Deciphering Ideas of Public Space & Citizenship in Horsh Beirut > Rana

Andraos

• Beyrouth - La Forêt des Pins - Les Courses (circa 1920) > Postcard by Anonymous

• The Horsh in Lebanese Law > Compiled by Bassam Chaya

• 2005 Research Interviews > Fadi Shayya

• Beirut’s Public Space (or Lack Thereof) > Hanin Ghaddar

• If It Exists, Sensibility Is Not Enough: Struggle for Urban Parks in Beirut > Salman Abbas

• Beyrouth - Promenade des Pins (circa 1935) > Postcard by Anonymous

• MP, Activist See Red over Green Spaces: AUB Debate over Parks

• Generates More Heat than Light > Samar Kanafani

• Structural Connectivity: Alternative Design Strategies to Reconnect the Park to Its Context > Studio ALBA

• A Picnic in “Bois des Pins” > The Picnic Group

• “Take Only Memories, Leave Nothing but Footprints” > Society for the Protection of Nature in Lebanon

• Inside Out [1]: Contemporary Photographic Documentation of the Horsh > Photos by Fouad Asfour

• Inside Out [2]: Contemporary Photographic Documentation of the Horsh > Photos by Fadi Shayya

• Beirut Park > Poster by Danny Khoury

• A Comparative Perspective of Open, Green Spaces > Infographics by Gregoire & Serge Serof

• Book Covers > Artwork by Danny Khoury

“Thanks again so much for the book and for the inventive way

in which you render this project--I will use it in my classes...”

AbdouMaliq Simone, Professor of Sociology, Goldsmiths,University of London

“It is clearly with that in mind that Fadi Shayya is working, along with the authors of

essays and projects collected here. Rather than covering the mainstream, Shayya provides a platform for the alternative...

Horsh Al-Sanawbar was waiting for a publication like this one.

Now it awaits action.”George Arbid, Professor of

Architecture, American University of Beirut

“I think that projects like At the Edge of the City are so

important, because they are political and thematize crucial urban issues; but most of all, because they did not lose faith

in creating a sort of critical awareness for the cities’

qualities and try to inject some vision into this vacuum of

imagination.” Ali Saad, Partner at UBERBAU

GbR | Architecture & Urbanism, Berlin, Germany

Inside the closed section of Beirut’s urban park, Horsh Al-Sanawbar (Shayya, 2010)

“It was very nice to meet you in Beirut last week. Thank you so much for the book, which looks

very interesting.”Teresa Caldeira, Professor of City & Regional Planning, University

of California, Berkeley

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“Public space is a very sensitive issue, and I am very pleased

with your contribution on this topic…It was also my pleasure

to share this wonderfully crafted editions with my fellow

colleagues, all very much interested in the topic of public

space in Lebanon.”Leon Telvizian, Professor and

Director of the Graduate Program of Landscape Planning,

Lebanese University

“It is a lovely piece of work and I congratulate you on

producing it.”Asef Bayat, Professor of

Humanities, Leiden University

“It was snatched away by fervent readers that were curious

to read it. I have since heard much praise from students and

colleagues. Many congratulations for your achievement. Knowing your initiative and persistence, I look forward to many, many

more contributions.”Jala Makhzoumi, Professor of

Landscape Design and Ecosystem Management, American

University of Beirut

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Transformation diagram (Shayya, Abou Reslan, & Hamad, 2009)

THE TRANSFORMATIONFROM PINE WOODS

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OF HORSH AL-SANAWBARTO URBAN PARK

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• “Beirut’s Park and Public Space,” Talk, 1 Feb 2012, Beirut (with a student group visiting Beirut from the Hamburg University of Fine Arts led by Friedrich von Borries and Daniel Kerber)

• “Welcome to Horsh Al-Sanawbar,” Talk, 25 May 2011, Pecha Kucha Beirut Night 11

• “The Grass Is Never Greener Except on the Other Side!” Book Launch, 23 Oct 2010, This Is Not A Gateway (London)

• “On Knowledge Production & the Creative Process: Reflections on the Unfolding of At the Edge of the City,” Talk, 15 Sep 2010, Polypod Creative Series

• “Municipal Governance & Social Perceptions of Public Space in Beirut,” Lecture, 5 Sep 2010, Nahnoo NGO

• “Public Space, Environment, Citizenship, & Good Governance,” Seminar (Introduction to Environmental Sciences), 20 Aug 2010, LAU

• “An Ambitious Policy Agenda for Green Open Spaces in Lebanese Cities,” Press Conference (Access to Rights, Rights to Resources Campaign), 11 June 2010, Green Line NGO

• “The Aggressive Nature of Urban Public Space,” Lecture, 8 Jun 2010, Institute of Fine Arts, LU

• “At the Edge of the City: Policy Implications for Public Space in Beirut,” Panel, 31 May 2010, Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy & International Affairs, AUB

• “At the Edge of the City,” Book Launch, 30 Apr 2010, Sunflower Cultural Center

• 100 Books for Free, 7 Jul 2012, RectoVerso, Beirut

• LAU Alumni Book Exhibition 2011, 24 May 2011, LAU, Beirut

• AUB Alumni Literary Festival 2010, 25-26 Mar 2011, AUB, Beirut

• Festival of Lebanese Art Books, 16-20 Nov 2010, RectoVerso, Beirut

• TINAG Festival 2010, 22-24 Oct 2010, This Is Not A Gateway, London

Talks & Panels Festivals & Exhibitions

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• Shayya, Fadi. Public Space in Beirut Dina Yunis. King’s College London, 1 August 2012.

• Shayya, Fadi. Kitab: At the Edge of the City Karen Boustany. 30 June 2012.

• Tholl, Sofie. “Beiruts største park lukket i 20 år. (Beirut’s largets park closed for 20 years)” Orientering. Podcast. Danish Radio. Beirut, 25 June 2012.

• Pańków, Lidia and Marta Bogdanska. “Witamy w parku Horsh al-Sanawbar. Wstęp wzbroniony! (Welcome to Horsh Al-Sanawbar Park. No Trespassing!).” 10 May 2012. wysokieobcasy.pl. 02 June 2012 [www.wysokieobcasy.pl].

• Baaklini, Jad. “Public space and civic interaction.” Hibr May 2011: 15.

• Daragahi, Borzou. “In Beirut, trying to make a public park open to the public.” 30 January 2011. The Washington Post. 9 February 2011.

• Daragahi, Borzou. “Beirut’s lone public park isn’t.” 7 January 2011. Los Angeles Times. 10 January 2011.

• Daragahi, Borzou. “No walk in the park: Beirut residents say refusal to open the Horsh Sanawbar to all exposes elitist inclinations.” 4 February 2011. Gulf News. 6 March 2011.

• Andersen, Remco. “Het Vondelpark van Beiroet houdt toegangspoort gesloten. (The Pine Park in Beirut keeps gates closed)” 30 November 2010. Trouw. 25 December 2010.

• Al-Khoury, Sanaa. “La Forêt des pins, un havre en marge de la cité.” Les Hirondelles 16 June 2010: 6.

• Nash, Matt. “Pining for a Forested Past.” Now Lebanon. April 22, 2010.

• Verdeil, Éric. “Beyrouth : les nouvelles lignes de front de la recherche urbaine (Beirut: The new front lines of urban research).” Métropolitiques 21 May 2012.

• Teague, Michael. “Liberating Public Space in Beirut.” 20 April 2012. Al Jadid. 22 April 2012 <http://www.aljadid.com/content/liberating-public-space-beirut>.

• Lane, Susanne. “Green Dreams: A rallying cry for Beirut’s public space.” Main Gate 2011: 28-30.

• Slemrod, Annie. “Stories about the empty park: Shayya’s ‘At the Edge of the City’ is an engaging multidisciplinary study of Beirut’s Pine Forest.” 6 January 2011. The Daily Star. 10 January 2011.

• Wilson-Goldie, Kaelen. “A psychogeographic tour through Beirut.” 5 August 2010. The National. 10 August 2010.

• Burchill, Kristen Hope. “Redefining Beirut’s Cityscape: A New Generation of Ethical Designers & Architects are Challenging Conventions.” LAU Magazine Fall 2010: 30-32.

• Nasrallah, Jad. “Fadi Shayya: About a ‘park’ that used to be Beirut’s Lungs.” Al-Akhbar 30 April 2010: 17. (In Arabic)

• HBF -MEO. “Statehood & Participation.” April 2010. Heinrich Böll Stiftung – Middle East Office. July 2010 <http://www.lb.boell.org/web/52-226.html>.

• Mouracadé, Dara. “Yesterday: The Amnesia of Amnesty – Save Beirut: today.” 29 March 2010. Alinea, Librairie Antoine book review #9. 11 May 2010 <http://www.antoineonline.com/newsletter/23/en/FromLebanon.html>.

Reviews Interviews

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• Forthcoming book by Frederic Francis of Francis Landscapes (Mein Books, 2012)

• Shayya, Fadi. “Beirut Park: Horsh Al-Sanawbar.” Beirut Gardens: Greening Places, Engaging Communities. Ed. Jala Makhzoumi. Beirut: AUB Press, 2012. (forthcoming)

• Shayya, Fadi, Fouad Asfour, and Lana Salman. “Recognizing the Invisible Monument: On the Politics of Memorilization and Public Space in Post-war Beirut.” Critical Cities: Ideas, Knowledge and Agitation from Emerging Urbanists. Ed. Deepa Naik and Trenton Oldfield. Vol. III. London: Myrdle Court Press, 2012. (forthcoming)

• Abunnasr, Yaser. “Zutritt nur mit Lizenz: Freiräume in Beirut (Access by License Only: Open Spaces in Beirut).” Garten+Landschaft: Zeitschrift für Landschaftsarchitektur July 2011: 22-23.

• Shayya, Fadi. “Production of a Pseudo-Public Space: A Reading of Park Closure in Beirut.” Typographic Matchmaking in the City. Ed. Huda Smitshuijzen AbiFares. Amsterdam: Khatt Books, 2010.

Publications

Beirut deserves its park, and Beirutis deservetheir city.

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• Amaya-Akkermans, Arie. “Beirut’s Forest: Pining Away the Public Space.” 8 June 2012. Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities. 10 July 2012 <http://www.hannaharendtcenter.org/?p=6099>.

• Larkin, Craig. “Remaking Beirut: Contesting Memory, Space, and the Urban Imaginary of Lebanese Youth.” City & Community 4.9 (2010): 414-442.

• “Horsh Beirut: Where people from different backgrounds can come together.” Lebanese American University. 30 August 2010.

• SOLIDERE Quarterly April-June 2010. Report. Beirut; SOLIDERE, 2010.

Research• El-Khoury, Tania. Parc des Pins, Parc des Sens.

Master Thesis. Beirut: Academie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts, 2012.

• Horwood, Chris. “Data Support and Urba Analysis Input for UN-HABITAT State of Arab Cities Report.” April 2011. November 2011. <http://www.unhabitat-kuwait.org/sacr2012/DATA%20sets%20AC/>.

Advocacy• Shayya, Fadi. “Partisan Urban Governance

Restricts access to public Space: Beirut’s Only Park is Closed,” Research & Policy Memo # 2, March 2011, Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy & International Affairs, AUB

• At the Edge of the City was the reference document for Nahnoo NGO’s campaign to reopen Horsh Al-Sanawbar, and consequent discussions with Editor Fadi Shayya led to creating a campaign strategy and policy recommendations.

Academic• Spring 2011. At the Edge of the City was a

reference document in the course reader for the design studio City as Lab NYC: Market Cities: Public Space and Food Networks (NINT 5361: CRN 6423, Section A) with Adriana Valdez Young at The New School Graduate Program in International Affairs taught in collaboration with City as Lab Beirut - Market Housing: Affordable Housing and Food Security (ARCH 304c: Vertical Design Studio C) with J. Matthew Thomas and Bernard Mallat at the American University of Beirut.

• 29 September 2010. Editor Fadi Shayya was invited as a juror to an urban design studio for a visiting group of students from the Universtiy of Technolgy Sydney led by Adrian Lahoud (http://post-traumaticurbanism.com/?p=444). An excerpt from Bilal Khbeiz’s chapter in At the Edge of the City appeared on Lahoud’s blog Post-traumatic Urbanism on 11 October 2010 under the title “The Mediterranean: co-existence/dialogue” (http://post-traumaticurbanism.com/?p=469).

Citations Projects

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“Yet, what makes this book so wonderful is its emphasis on the solution, not the problem.”Michael Teague, Al Jadid

“Engaged citizens and professionals like Fadi Shayya and others continue to advocate for public spaces in Beirut—places where everyone is welcome and where people from different socio-economic, religious, and political backgrounds can come together.”Susanne Lane, Main Gate

“…the collection proposes a new discourse about Beirut’s park and public spacein the city”Annie Slemrod, The Daily Star

“Their arguments about the city are psychogeographic, channeling Guy Debord and the Situationist International”Kaelen Wilson-Goldie, The National

“Another striking feature characteristic of the positioning of these authors is their radical criticism particularly with regard to urban planning, which played a central role in the normative discourse on reconstruction and reconciliation in post-war Beirut.”Éric Verdeil, Métropolitiques

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