R E F U G E

“The image of the traveler depends not on power, but on motion, on a willingness to go into different worlds, use different idioms, and understand a variety of disguises, masks, and rhetorics. Travelers must suspend the claim of customary routine in order to live in new rhythms and rituals. Most of all, most unlike the potentate who must guard only one place and defend its frontiers, the

traveler crosses over, traverses territory, and abandons fixed positions, all the time.”

Edward W. Said in Identity, Authority, and Freedom: The Potentate and the Traveler

ARCH 671: Design Research & Methodology

Carla Smiley

01/04/08

T H E R E F U G E Tourism somehow survives in Lebanon, a war-torn country that remains relatively unstable. The Cedars in Mount Lebanon reconcile two very different types of travellers – those who choose to travel, and those who are forced to. For the leisure traveler, the region has long been a tourist destination, its historical significance dating back to 2000 BC. For the temporarily displaced, the mountains provide a safe haven that the city cannot. Colliding the programmatic requirements of these two groups in a single refuge will effectively initiate tourists to the less visible layers of life in Lebanon, while thoughtfully developing one of the countries oldest historical regions.

P R E M I S E In the eyes of the west, one day Lebanon is an attractive tourist destination, the next it is a dangerous time bomb. As soon as Beirut began to spread from beyond its old city walls in 1830, a nascent hotel industry developed to receive a growing stream of foreign travelers. Tourism has been a major source of wealth for the country that even the civil war was unable to fully compromise (Kubursi 1993). Though unlike in the case of tragic tourism, travelers do not go to Lebanon to get a whiff of catastrophe. Tourists come to Lebanon for its geographical, climactic, social and cultural aspects. Lebanon offers the sea, the mountains, archaeological sites, and a lively night scene. In the past century, the mountains of Lebanon have attracted visitors from neighbouring regions, who seek a place with a cool climate in which to spend the summer. The country's more liberal attitude toward gambling, drinking, and entertainment are attractive to residents of countries with stronger Muslim fundamentalist influences. The Qadisha valley in Mount Lebanon, declared an UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1998, has long been one of the country’s most visited tourist attractions. In the region are found some of the earliest Christian monastic settlements in the world as well as the oldest remaining cedar trees, survivors of a sacred forest described in the bible. Considered holy, this region referred to as “the Cedars” was never bombed throughout the civil war (see figure 1). The Lebanese Civil War of 1975 – 1990 saw massive internal population displacements that have effectively redrawn the social geography of the country, diluting the homogeneity that once characterized regions. The largest wave of this displacement took place in 1985 around Mount Lebanon (White 2002). Almost one third of the country’s population was displaced, both within different quarters of the city, and between the city and the countryside. Some displacement was largely permanent, where the displaced moved with the intention of creating a permanent residence in a new area. The other type of displacement was of a more temporary nature, where the displaced were squatting, living with residents, or hiding out in a second home in the village until the violence calmed and they could return to their homes (Yehya 1993). Still today in times of conflict, though the situation is not nearly on the scale of the civil war, it is typical of city dwellers to flee for the mountains. A refuge in the Cedars is an effort to reconcile the region’s reputation as a tourist attraction with the notion of safety in the mountains for the Lebanese people, effectively bringing the tourist almost too close to the realities of living in Lebanon. The programmatic requirements of the tourist will be collided with that of people seeking temporary relief and shelter. In some ways, a tourist precinct is less a part of its own region than a point along the international lanes of travel (Ockman 2005). This intervention is an effort to initiate tourists to the less visible layers of life and encourage a more thoughtful type of visit.

Sources: White, Stacy. 2002. Internally Displaced People. London: Earthscan. 182 –184. Khalaf, Samir and Phillip S. Khoury. 1993. Recovering Beirut: Urban Design and Post-War Reconstruction. London:

E.J. Brill. Yehya, Maya. 1993. Reconstituting Space. In Recovering Beirut: Urban Design and Post-War Reconstruction, ed.

Samir Khalaf and Phillip S. Khoury, 170-182. London: E.J. Brill. Kubursi, Atif A. 1993. Reconstructing and/or Reconstituting the Post-War Lebanese Economy. In Recovering Beirut:

Urban Design and Post-War Reconstruction, ed. Samir Khalaf and Phillip S. Khoury, 128-164. London: E.J. Brill.

Nasr, Salim. 1993. New Social Realities and Post-War Lebanon. In Recovering Beirut: Urban Design and Post-War

Reconstruction, ed. Samir Khalaf and Phillip S. Khoury, 63-75. London: E.J. Brill.

S U B J E C T - T O U R I S M I N A W A R – T O R N C O U N T R Y Beirut was once a playground for the jet-set, affectionately referred to as the Jewel of the Middle East. Though after almost two decades of civil war, and continual conflict with neighbouring countries, the city’s name has become more synonymous with the notion of destruction. Despite this instability, tourists continue to visit the country, the skyline is littered with cranes, and the noise of construction is a constant reminder that the country is in a continual state of reconstruction. The Lebanese economy is highly dependant on tourism, which accounts for over 20% of the country’s Gross Domestic Product. The economic and political situation in Lebanon has resulted in the lack of a much needed tourist infrastructure, which will be the backbone of any sustainable recovery for the nation. As one of the world’s fastest growing industries, tourism is increasingly looking towards architecture to produce iconic structures. How can tourism be promoted in a war-torn country that remains relatively unstable? Why should tourists continue to come to Lebanon, and what role can architecture play? Using a building to stimulate tourism and solidify a culture’s identity is not a new phenomena – it dates back to ancient Greece, Delphi being a prime example (Ockman 2005). Attempts at the revival of tourism in the country have been made. Solidere, a redevelopment scheme for the centre of Beirut, encompasses one of the most historically rich and politically charged parts of the city. The development remains controversial, accused by some of marketing nostalgia for the past, smoothing over the contradictions that lie below the city’s surface, and promoting a type of neo-colonialism through the exclusion of Lebanese architects. The development has indeed attracted tourism and investment, but from a very specific clientele. The redevelopment coincided with the events of September 11, 2001, after which many gulf Arabs pulled their money out of the west and began searching for a place to invest it closer to home. This oil money has not only altered the architectural landscape of the country, it has started to impact the country’s social makeup (Ouroussof 2006). Can a more varied and constructive form of tourism be promoted through the thoughtful redevelopment of the country’s historical regions? Sources: Ouroussof, Nicolai. 2006. Should the Scars of Beirut be Left Raw? The New York Times Magazine. Volume 6. 89-99. Ockman, Joan and Salomon Frausto. 2005. Architourism. Munich: Prestel.

P R O G R A M - T H E G E T - A W A Y Whether perceived as background or foreground, architecture has always been an integral part of the tourist’s experience. The search for change often ends in predictability. Untouched places with distinct characteristics attract tourists, and the facilities they require inevitably bring change. Eventually, visitors become involved in the destruction of the very qualities that attracted them to a region in the first place. Tourism is a mirror of contradictions, regenerating as it pollutes, enriching as it alienates. I propose a mountain refuge catering to two types of travelers. In times of stability, the refuge will serve the leisure traveler as a tourist hub in the cedars, providing information, accommodation, and other facilities to bemuse/inform. In times of conflict, the refuge becomes a safe haven for city-dwellers, fleeing to the mountains to seek shelter from the violence. In Event Cities, Bernard Tschumi describes disprogramming, a method of combining two programs so that the spatial configuration of one program will contaminate that of the other. In this case, the programmatic requirements of the tourist will be collided with that of people seeking temporary relief and shelter. In a sense, the refuge concretises the dualities of comfort and distress, excess and necessity, the controlled and the uncontrollable. The program will be flexible enough to accommodate variable and uncertain durations of stay. Description Square Feet Lobby/Information Centre 2,000 Hotel (20 units) 14,000 Apartments (10 units) 20,000 Restaurant 2,000 Recreation Space 5,000 Washrooms 800 Total 43,800 Source: Tshumi, Bernard. 1994. Event Cities. London: The MIT Press.

S I T E - T H E C E D A R S

The Qadisha valley in Mount Lebanon, declared an UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1998, has long been one of the country’s most famous tourist attractions. In the region are found some of the earliest Christian monastic settlements in the world as well as the oldest remaining cedar trees, survivors of a “sacred forest”. One of the most coveted building materials of the ancient world, cedar was exported by the Phoenicians to Egypt, an important factor in the growth of Phoenician prosperity (Masri 1995). Considered too sacred, this region was never hit during Lebanon’s Civil War (see figure 1). Egyptian and Mesopotamian documents circa 2600 BC reveal that the area was famous for its timber (Mikesell 1969). Sadly, today only scattered remnants of the forest survive. The site I’ve chosen for this refuge will be just north of Bcharre, overlooking the Arz el Rab, or the Cedars of the Lord. It is one of twelve regions remaining in Lebanon in which the Lebanese Cedar, or Cedrus Libani can be found (see figure 2). The strand comprises only 7 hectares, but contains some of the oldest and largest specimens in the world. The region also contains one of the two ski resorts in Lebanon, which has been in operation since the 1920’s. Sources: United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. World Heritage List.

http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/850 Rania Masri. 1995. The Cedars of Lebanon: Signifigance, Awareness, and Management of the Cedrus Libani in

Lebanon. The International Relief Fund. http://almashriq.hiof.no/lebanon/300/360/363/363.7/transcript.html#s3 Mikesell, Marvin W. 1969. The Deforestation of Mount Lebanon. Geographical Review. 59: 1-28.

M O D E - T H E I M A G E & T H E A N E C D O T E Postcards present views of what it is believed that tourists want to see. The attraction is at its most pristine; there is not a cloud in the sky or a tourist in sight. In some cases, postcards reveal what the tourist will never see, but they know its there, because they’re been bombarded with images of it. The postcard image of Lebanon is a durable one. During the civil war Technicolor images of pre-war Beirut were put away, only to be brought out again as tourists began to return in the 1990’s (Harvey 2006). The absurdity of the situation was heightened by the fact that some of the buildings in the images didn’t even exist anymore. Joanna Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige have been working on Wonder Beirut since 1997, a project based on the work of photographer Abdallah Farah. Farah published a series of postcards in 1968 depicting life in Beirut, which are still available in bookstores today. In the fall of 1975, Abdallah began damaging the negatives of his postcards, as if trying to record his contemporary situation. Self-described image producers, the team focuses on the possibility of the anecdote to appropriate history, and try to find new ways to create images through evocation, absence, and latency. If the official version of history is written by the “winners,” they concern themselves with the unofficial and subversive space governed by the anecdotal (see figure 3). Unlike Beirut, the Cedars did not see much physical destruction throughout the war, due to the region’s iconic status. Though similar to Farah’s photographs, postcards of the region from the late 60’s and early 70’s are still around today. These postcards, focused mostly on the surrounding scenery and cedar trees, only provide a snapshot image of the Cedars, for despite its reputation as safe haven, the real image is far more complex. Through the development of a new series of postcards I hope to come to a better understanding of the anecdotes of the Cedars. Sources: Cotter, Suzanne. 2006. Beirut Unbound. In Out of Beirut, ed. Suzanne Cotter, 26-40. Manchester: Modern Art

Oxford. Harvey, Simon. 2006. Smuggling Practices into the Image of Beirut. In Out of Beirut, ed. Suzanne Cotter, 35-38.

Manchester: Modern Art Oxford.

C O N C L U S I O N The demand for safe areas in Lebanon has lead to soaring land values and speculation, resulting in unsightly ribbon developments and speculative urban growth. The deterioration of the spatial and physical qualities of the environment are perhaps more due to these indirect effects of violence than to the direct destruction caused by the war (Tabet 1993). Despite instability, tourists continue to visit Lebanon, and the country is in a continual state of reconstruction. Colliding the programmatic requirements of the tourist with that of the traveler seeking temporary shelter, will expose the tourist to the less obvious layers of life in Lebanon, while thoughtfully developing one of the countries oldest historical regions. Source: Tabet, Jad. 1993. Towards a Master plan for Post-War Lebanon. In Recovering Beirut: Urban Design and Post-War

Reconstruction, ed. Samir Khalaf and Phillip S. Khoury, 81-94. London: E.J. Brill.

A P P E N D I X

Figure 1 Israeli Assault on Lebanon

Figure 2 Cedar Groves in Lebanon : the Cedars of the Lord are found in Bcharre, referred to on the map as region 6 : Bsharri.

Figure 3 Joanna Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige. Wonder Beirut: The Story of a Pyromaniac Photographer. 1999-2006.

S O U R C E S Mikesell, Marvin W. 1969. The Deforestation of Mount Lebanon. Geographical Review. 59: 1-28. Said, Edward W. 1994. Identity, Authority, and Freedom: The Potentate and the Traveler.

Boundary 2. Vol. 21, No. 3. 1-18 Ockman, Joan and Salomon Frausto. 2005. Architourism. Munich: Prestel. Ho, Cathy Lang. 2002. Safe Haven: Disasters and war have left millions homeless around the world. Can architects help? Architecture. 11. 80-83. Tshumi, Bernard. 1994. Event Cities. London: The MIT Press. Cotter, Susan. 2006. Out of Beirut. Manchester: Modern Art Oxford. Ragette, Fredrich. 1983. Beirut of Tomorrow. Beirut: AUB. Khalaf, Samir, and Phillip S. Khoury, ed. 1993. Recovering Beirut: Urban Design and Post-War

Reconstruction. London: E.J. Brill. Cotter, Suzanne, ed. 2006. Out of Beirut. Manchester: Modern Art Oxford. Said, Edward W. 1978. Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books. Mills, Edward E. 1983. Design for Holidays and Tourism. London: Butterworths. 1 – 35. Cotter, Suzanne. 2006. Beirut Unbound. In Out of Beirut, ed. Suzanne Cotter, 26-40.

Manchester: Modern Art Oxford. Harvey, Simon. 2006. Smuggling Practices into the Image of Beirut. In Out of Beirut, ed. Suzanne

Cotter, 35-38. Manchester: Modern Art Oxford. Bell, Claudia and John Lyall. 2002. The Accelerated Sublime. Westport: Praeger Publishers. United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. World Heritage List.

http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/850 Rania Masri. 1995. The Cedars of Lebanon: Signifigance, Awareness, and Management of the

Cedrus Libani in Lebanon. The International Relief Fund. http://almashriq.hiof.no/lebanon/300/360/363/363.7/transcript.html#s3