the case of central beirut district reconstruction by solidere: a step towards colonisation by...

8/9/2019 THE CASE OF CENTRAL BEIRUT DISTRICT RECONSTRUCTION BY SOLIDERE: A step towards colonisation by capital?

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THE CASE OF CENTRAL BEIRUT DISTRICT RECONSTRUCTION BY SOLIDERE:

A step towards colonisation by capital?

Student: Aida Biscevic

Colonial and Postcolonial Urbanism_August 2014


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INTRODUCTION

Beirut is a peculiar city, torn apart by the Lebanese Civil War (1975-1991). More precisely, it is torn apart by the

image it used to have before that certain moment in history, the one of 'Paris of the Middle East' (Shwayri, 2008) and

the urge to renew it. The Central District played an important role in both establishing and ruining that image. Beirut's

reputation(s) grew as its center grew. The destruction of Central District meant the destruction of not only the city, but

the whole Lebanon. After being the center of Lebanese and Middle Eastern economy before the 1970s (Shwayri,

2008), one of the most severe battlefields of the Civil War, CBD eventually became a flagship project of the postwar

reconstruction by the former prime minister Rafiq Hariri. The controversy around the CBD reconstruction echoed in

the Lebanese public, and resulted in protests against the issue of destruction of what used to be the historical center

of Beirut, the organization of reconstruction led by Solidere1, the adaptations of legal framework that made it possible

(Makdisi, 1997), etc.

This paper focuses on the project of CBD reconstruction by Solidere and the aspects that make it a showcase of the

'colonization by capital' (Makdisi, 1997).

Figure 1 – The aerial view over Beirut [Source: Solidere, 2004, pp. 5]

1 Solidere – from French acronym Société Libanaise pour le développement et la reconstruction de Beyrouth; for The Lebanese

Company for the Development and Reconstruction of Beirut Central District. It was incorporated in 1994 as a joint-stockcompany.


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BEIRUT: A COLONIAL CAPITAL COMES TO LIFE

It is important to contextualize Beirut and its Central District in order to understand how it became a capital from an

'ordinary' province, guided by clear visions of its future on the behalf of the colonizing French. The relations to the

colonial development of the city, the fact that it became a 'laboratory for French planners' (Nasr and Verdeil, 2008),

just as many other colonial cities, conditioned the lack of public participation and state institutions involvement that

are troubling the processes of planning today.

The development of the city is marked with colonialism, from the massive infrastructure investments in the interest of

French, till the still present orientation towards Paris when in need for master plans. The 'shy' role of Lebanese State

in the whole process of the development of Beirut, from independence up till today, is also rooted in it.

It was not until the French mandate over Lebanon when foundations for the image of Beirut as the capital were set.

The decision of French colonizers to choose Beirut as the capital of the states in Levant and Lebanon - the center of

French High Commission in 1923 shaped the future of the city (Shwayri, 2008; Nasr and Verdeil, 2008). From a small

provincial town, the role it had in the Ottoman Empire, through French show-off city, it grew into the regional

economic center.

However, even before the French, the socio-spatial transformations were led by external forces, either political andeconomical decisions of Ottoman Empire/French mandate or sudden changes in the Middle East (like the creation of

Izrael in 1948) and external interests. The ideas of both Ottomans and French to 'reinvent' the status and image of

Beirut were intertwined with the ideas of modernizing the city, either through Ottoman reforms or the emergence of

urban planning in colonial cities all over the world (Nasr and Verdeil, 2008). These political changes were manifested

in the central area of Beirut, where both foreign influences confirmed their presence and power.

Figure 2 - Ottoman skyline on Qantari Hill, Grand Serail, clocktower, and military hospital [Source: Hanssen, 2005, pp. 242]


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Ottoman 'modernization' of the city happened after it was assigned a higher administrative status – becoming thegovernorate of Beirut in 1888. The Turks then invested in the Beirut's spaces – namely Central District, as aconcentration of their presence, until the beginning of the First World War. Today's City Hall, the Serail, was built atthat time, together with the clock tower. The clock was, of course, showing Istambul time (Nasr and Verdeil, 2008).However, the colonial powers – France, England and Germany, competed for infrastructural projects throughout theOttoman provinces, since mid 19th century. In the case of Beirut, those were projects of re-orientation of the trade

and renovation of the port, as well as the ones of a new railway and a highway to Damascus (El Hibri, 2009).When it was declared a capital in 1923, Beirut set off on a decades-long journey of establishing itself on the regional

and international map.

Figure 3 – Ottoman Burj Square and Serail [Source: Hanssen, 2005, pp. 258]

For the Central District, this meant a transformation from an Ottoman style city-center with numerous souks, to a city

of alleys, boulevards and modern New Levantine-style buildings (Nasr and Verdeil, 2008). Street grid was imposed

over the old fabric, marking the “decisive break with the Ottoman past“ (El Hibri, 2009, pp. 125). A new state wasbeing born and it needed a new stage, to correspond with French interest in Lebanon - a center of their own in MiddleEast (Shwyari, 2008). Beirut had already been a strategically important French port before their interventions,

primarily due to its geographic location, but the extensive work on the city infrastructure made it into the major

regional node; the highway leading to Damascus and the first national airport were built (1927), while the port was

extended and modernized (Shwyari, 2008).“…the Danger brothers visited Beirut in 1929 to offer their services to themunicipality. They were the first French town planners to go to the Near East; the mandatory administration being so

busy securing its domination in this region by means of ameliorating the road network and agricultural development,


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Figure 4 – Aerial View over Beirut, 1926 [Source: El Hibri, 2009, pp. 122]

that the sole important intervention undertaken before that date had been the remodelling of the port quarter by two

street breakthroughs in 1919 and the star-shaped Étoile square in 1926.” (Hastaoglou‐Martinidis, 2011, pp. 126).

Therefore, unlike pre-war policies applied in French colonies (the tabula-rasa approach in Algeria), their interventionsin Lebanon were supposed to ‘enlighten’ the people with the visions of what they are supposed to do. In spatial termsthis meant “to ennoble local subjects with architectural forms that drew on and improved what it understood as its

“heritage” (El Hibri, pp. 125). Erasing the past, imposing new grid and urban fabric over the Ottoman heritage,insisting on large scale plans as the ‘solution’ for Lebanon and financial support for large scale projects in partnershipwith local elites.

The beginning of Lebanon’s independence was marked with many crucial political events in the region, causing manypeople from neighboring countries to move to – Beirut: Armenian, Palestinian, Syrian, Egyptian refugees. Theircapital and labor accompanied the massive economic growth that followed.

In the period from the Independence until the Civil War, Lebanon became the ‘Paris of the Middle East’. The inflow ofcapital within the laissez-faire service economy, followed by more infrastructural improvements in and around theCBD attracted investors from both the West and Arab world: “Underlying the city’s growth were government policiesthat compounded the flow of the capital and the expansion of the banking sector and turned the capital into a safe

haven for depositing and investing Arab money” (Shwyari, 2008, pp. 74). Beirut became the center of economic activities, tourism, culture and night life of the region. CBD was, once again,changed: it had expanded over its original limits, with growing hotel area and expansion of banking area to theHamra street, and an impressive inflow of tourists. As the image of Beirut as a regional node grew, so did themigrations towards the city. If the original movements of people towards the capital boosted the development, thefollowing waves of migrations, caused primarily by two factors: the attractiveness of a capital and the continuousconflicts between Israel and the rest of Arab states, did too, but with a negative connotation. Immigrants settled in thesuburbs, creating two ‘rings’ of slums and refugee camps, with living conditions not so distinctive from one to theother category. “As a consequence of those migrants’ waves, Beirut’s population grew from about 160,000 in 1920 to


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400,000 in 1950. In 1970, the city and the first ring of suburbs amounted to 800,000 inhabitants but the wholeagglomeration pushed the total to 1.2 million” (Nasr and Verdeil, 2008, pp. 1119).

However, despite the independence and investments in Beirut as the capital, the approach to planning the cityremained barren with colonialist heritage, as French planners continued producing master plans, and the lack ofpresence of Lebanese state in the planning process – despite the reforms under the president Fouad Chabab, setting

the framework for planning (1959-1964) (Verdeil, 2008).Throughout the ‘golden age’ (Shwyari, 2008) master plans for the development of Beirut were made by Frenchplanners, upon invitation: Ecochard (1943 and 1961) and Egli (1952). The latter is still the official planning strategy ofmetropolitan Beirut (Charlesworth, 2006). All of these master plans were based on modernist traditions – zoning,development following freeways, deconcentration and modernization of the city centers, etc. Furthermore, all of themare a clear example of the lack of sensitivity from behalf of the involved foreign planners to the multiplicities ofBeirut’s people and spaces, as they kept ignoring the fast growth of the city and the endangered populations ofimmigrants and refugees that were settling in and around the city. The ‘we know how’ approach also meant instatinga tradition of no public participation in the projects.

Figure 5 – Ecochard’s sketch for Beirut [Source: El Hibri, 2009, pp. 128]


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Figure 6 – Detail of the zoning plan of 1964 [Source: El Hibri, 2009, pp. 129]

During the Civil War the CBD became one of the largest battlefields in the city. It was severely damaged by the waractivities and the demolition process led by political interests and taking advantage of the state of war and absence ofinstitutions and official plans: in 1983 Rafiq Hariri’s OGER Liban led the demolition of “some of the district's mostsignificant surviving buildings and structures, as well as Souk Al-Nouriyeh and Souk Sursuq and large sections ofSaif” (Makdisi, 1997, pp. 667). Similar destruction happened again in 1986.

After the war, the reconstruction of CBD was an imperative for the Lebanese State. The significance and reputationthat Beirut had on the regional map had to be restored and that was to be done through recovering the ‘heart of thecity’. Beirut had to become, yet again, a regional financial and administrative center, with the main goal of attractingcapital. Due to the massive extent of destruction during the war, the reconstruction project had not only to deal withthe CBD, but also the surrounding infrastructure providing access: the Airport, the Port and the road networkconnecting them (Shwayri, 2008).

The plans of reconstructing the CBD appeared even at the beginning of the war, when the CBD was damaged in thefirst place. Those plans called for reintegration of the center in class and religious terms, back to the high level ofdiversity in CBD that Beirut used to take pride in (Makdisi, 1997).However, by the time the war ended, the damage done was not only measured in human casualties or the extent of

physical damage to CBD. The ‘mental map’ of the city was changed. CBD did virtually not exist as a central pointanymore. Furthermore, thanks to the in(famous) Green Line, the city was now divided to the East and West, theChristian and the Muslim city. This meant a total shift of concentration of people to the the religiously homogenousoutskirts (Charlesworth, 2006), as well as a shift in the idea of ‘priorities’ when it came to reconstruction.


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Figure 7 – Central Beirut following the war [Source: Makdisi, 1997, pp. 669]

The plans of reconstructing the CBD appeared even at the beginning of the war, when the CBD was damaged in thefirst place. Those plans called for reintegration of the center in class and religious terms, back to the high level ofdiversity in CBD that Beirut used to take pride in (Makdisi, 1997).However, by the time the war ended, the damage done was not only measured in human casualties or the extent ofphysical damage to CBD. The ‘mental map’ of the city was changed. CBD did virtually not exist as a central point

anymore. Furthermore, thanks to the in(famous) Green Line, the city was now divided to the East and West, theChristian and the Muslim city. This meant a total shift of concentration of people to the the religiously homogenousoutskirts (Charlesworth, 2006), as well as a shift in the idea of ‘priorities’ when it came to reconstruction.

Predecessor of the Solidere plan was the one of Edde, a French architect, in 1991. This plan called for demolition ofwhat ever is remaining of the city center and replacing it with modern buildings. Proposals such as creation of anartificial island for high-rise towers, a boulevard wider than Champs Elysees that would cross over the MartyrsSquare, development based on opening new axes, were the first hint of the approach to CBD reconstruction, thatwould follow the refusal of Edde’s plan – a new priority is to break the relation with the war-baarren past (Makdisi,


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1997). The idea of a real-estate company that would finance the project and expropriate the lands from pre-warowners and turn the ownership into shares was already a main presumption for this plan. However, the biggestcontroversy around the plan was the idea of complete demolition of remaining structures in CBD. Strong publicopposition resulted in final rejection of the project.

Figure 8 – One of the souks, 1984 [Source: Bercherer, 2006, pp.8]

Figure 9 – Edde’s master plan [Source: Makdisi, 1997, pp. 673]


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The area of Solidere’s master plan is 180 ha, including the 73 ha of reclaimed land from war time garbage dumpNormand. According to Agnus Gavin (2005), Solidere’s urban development manager, and Solidere’s booklet ‘BeirutCity Center’ (2004) the master plan was concerned with several core issues. First issue – the changing role of thecity center. Beirut’s CBD was supposed to overcome its singular, ‘traditional’ role of banking, business andgovernment center, and to become a ‘magnet for shopping, entertainment, culture and leisure’, focusing on concepts

such as ‘mixed-use’ and ‘downtown living’.Second issue crucial to the master plan is the identity of Beirut: “…master plan should stimulate the growth of theunique identity of the place, rather than imposing on Beirut the collective identity of a global city. Beirut should standby its differences and not adopt the ubiquitous sameness of the globalizing world” (Gavin, 2005, pp. 22). The identityof Beirut is to be anchored in its ‘carefully preserved’ history and heritage, with conservation areas, heritage trails,museums and gardens. The street grid, based on the old (supposedly) Helenistic one, was to be restored and streetlife to become the focus of the development. In the words of Gavin (2005, pp. 22): “A fourth core idea was to create astreet-based master plan, moving away from the modernist-inspired city of object buildings and internal privatemalls”. Traditional residential areas and their fabric within CBD will be preserved, accompanied by the newneighborhoods emerging around the CBD and waterfront area (Solidere, 2004).Furthermore, the city is to develop around its public domain, highlighted by ‘high quality open spaces’ – landscapedstreets, squares and pedestrian areas, in order to create a ‘vibrant’, ‘finest’ city center that would attract all Lebanese

people (Gavin, 2005) and at the same time “a place where quality of life, work and leisure ranks high” (Solidere,2004, pp. 29).Projects of the old-new souks, hotel district, new waterfront with a marina add up to the list.

Figure 11 – Beirut Souks [Source: http://www.culturedivine.com/Beirut%20Souks%205.jpg]


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Figure 12 – ‘The finest city center ’ [Source: Solidere, 2004, pp. 50-51]


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Figure 13 – View from Daliyeh towards New waterfront developments and an old fishing port to be destroyed [Taken by author, March2014]

However, despite these claims and the ‘very sophisticated’ (Shwayri, 2008) multimedia campaign, Solidere did notescape heavy critique, both for the actual master plan and the process and legal framework of the implementation.The company was criticized for the conflict of interest involved, on behalf of Rafiq Hariri; ‘conflict’ of the company’sprivate character and high public interest (Charlesworth, 2006); lack of public participation and controlling agencies;patronizing ‘we know how’ attitude; (Makdisi, 1997), etc. The most publicly criticized aspect of the project (Makdisi, 1997; Charlesworth, 2006; Becherer, 2006; Shwayri, 2008;Fawaz and Krijnen, 2010) is the multiple exclusivity of it. Even though the company and its main developmentmanager take pride in advertising a city for all Lebanese, that is not set out to attract globalization but a new identityfor CBD anchored in its history, most of these claims remain rhetoric. In fact, during the evolutions of the master plan,Beirut expanded and was becoming even more divided that it was at the end of the Civil War, following the East/Westdivision by the Green Line. Instead of dealing with the surroundings of the Central District, the master plan by

Solidere simply excluded them from their visions for the ‘finest city center’ (Charlesworth, 2006). Lack of interest forplanning those areas, resulted in uncontrolled urban sprawl, traffic congestion and sanitation issues (Fawaz andKrijnen, 2010), while the new ‘shiny’ city center was emerging. The preserved traditional residential areas werecorrectly predicted to suffer from gentrification, as they did not keep their pre-war identity and were priced over thepossibilities of most Lebanese (Makdisi, 1997).Furthermore, according to Charlesworth (2006), making the place into a ‘paradise for the rich’ was no secret and wasopenly discussed by Rafiq Hariri: “Two-thirds of this land is residential; about three million square metres areresidential with 30 000 apartments, so if we have rich people to fill 30 000 apartments,it means that we’re in a good position.” (Charlesworth, 2006, pp. 76).


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Of course, the issue of destruction of historical heritage is one of the most commonly commented, specially whenplaced within the context of company’s advertisement of the development as a Lebanese-oriented, againstglobalization and overall anchored in history – “Beirut. Ancient City for the Future” (Solidere, 2004; Charlesworth,2006). The making of the new identity for the city was, in theory, based on its rich historical layers: “ Althoughdevelopment by private real estate companies has become the norm in many cities, the delegation of an entirehistoric urban core, the remnants of almost all the Roman, Mamluk, Ottoman, and French Mandate layers of

architecture of a capital city, to a profit-oriented real estate company is unprecedented” (Fawaz and Krijnen, 2010,pp. 251.) The example of souks is the most evident one. The old Ottoman souks that used to make the core of the public life inCBD were completely demolished during one of the ‘actions’ at the end of the war/beginning of implementation of theproject. In the project of Solidere, they play a key role. ‘The souks of Beirut’ are one of the flagship projects in CBDtoday, advertised as based upon the traditional merchant activity, complimentary to the Hotel and Waterfront district(Solidere, 2004).

As early as in 1997, Makdisi points out the contradiction between the ‘important role’ the souks have played in thenew master plan by Solidere and the fact that they are vritually non-existing as historical heritage and questions thecharacter they might have once built: “how the collection of shops … given the benediction of the term souk willrecapture any lifestyle other than that of the postmodern shopping mall” (Makdisi, 1997, pp. 686). In fact, the souks of today are made up of exclusive shops, a cinema city with 14 halls, and similar content, unlike the

previously presented description by Gavin (2005) presented - an escape from the western-like shopping mall.

Figure 14 – Waterfront development [Source: Solidere, 2004, pp. 41]


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CONCLUDING REMARKS: SOLIDERE – COLONIZATION BY CAPITAL?

In order to position the Solidere project within the discourse of re-colonization by capital, some of the aforementionedissues have to be further elaborated. The main presumption is that the Solidere master plan is marked by the inheritpractices of period of colonization and represent an evolution of colonialist practices in planning.

First of all, a parallel can be made between the approach French colonialists had towards remaking Beirut in early20th century and the Harirism (Makdisi, 1997) that determined post-war reconstruction. City center was in both casesseen as tabula rasa, and the memory of the place not worth preserving. In the case of French Mandate, that memorywas the one of Ottoman past. In the story of Solidere it is the memory of destruction and war that needs to be erased: “Not a single building should be kept as it is to remind us of the civil war. There is no need to preserve this painfulmemory’, so Rafiq Hariri recently pronounced.” (Bercherer, 2006, pp.7)

As mentioned, Solidere or, more precisely, main actors related to it, Hariri and his company, played an important rolein the whole destruction process. Buildings were deliberately destroyed according to the agenda of re-inventingBeirut and in this context it should be pointed out that the process was selective: the Ottoman heritage was mostlydestroyed, while the monumental buildings of French colonial era were out of reach (Bercherer, 2006).

Solidere’s vision for new CBD was the one of ‘modernization’, related to the symbols of globalization and capital likeKing’s (2004) skyscraper, modern and vivid shopping streets and centers, marines and sea promenades. This‘westernization’ of the city continues the traditions of colonial ‘enlightenment’ – importing foreign values into acomplex and multi-layered society.The reason for this modernization, argues Bercherer (2006) is to attract foreign, namely Western capital, to re-assure the (western) world that the city is a good enough place to invest in. This mimicry of economic stability, civilorder, competitiveness and progress are limited to the Central District and completely ignore the misery of thesurroundings. Thanks to the private interests ‘colonizing’ the public during ‘Harirism’ (Makdisi, 1997), Lebanonbecame an experiment of the laissez-faire economy and global capitalism, where anything could happen as long as itserves the purpose of circulation of capital.Just like the French, Solidere was focused on re-inventing the image of the city through project for the CBD, as wellas the extensive infrastructure ‘improvements’ all intended to back-up the CBD’s development – the road network,Rafiq Hariri Airport, extention of the port, planned marina, etc. And just like the French, these efforts were made

without really considering the needs of Lebanese people. Exactly the opposite, they turned the CBD in an overplanned, exclusive area, much contrasted with under planned surroundings. The system of roads leading from majorinfrastructure nodes to CBD cuts through the rest of the city’s tissue carelessly, walled off or floating over the slums,camps and overbuilt neighborhoods outside the center.

And much like the colonial cities, the Solidere plan further worsened the class and sectarian segregation of Lebanese

society. The narrative of restoring the variety of classes, religions and jobs that used to characterize Central District

remains only that – a narrative. In reality, the CBD’s borders are an addition to the Green Line. The latter divides thecity to Christian and Muslim, while Solidere divides it to the rich and the poor (Bercherer, 2006; Charlesworth, 2006;

Fawaz and Krijnen, 2010). “When,on 16 February1 996, a family of squatters was killedw hen the building they hadbeen living in was brought down by a Solidere demolition crew( with the squatters still inside),many people's worst

fears were confirmed: there would literally be no space in the revitalized and gentrified cosmopolitan city center forsuch destitute and "undesirable" migrants” (Makdisi, 1997, pp. 700).

What contributed to Solidere’s monopoly over the city center is the reality of post-war situation. Lebanese peoplenever had a strong sense of national identity. What remained of it after the war was severely damaged by re-emerging sectarian division and identification as Christians, Sunnis or Shiyas, rather than Lebanese. Instead of usinga large scale project to contribute to the difficult re-building of a nation, “The rush to establish Solidere and itsassociated privatized planning process in order to reinvent a prosperous international image for the destroyedcity of Beirut, has then only further divided an already highly fractured post-war nation-building process”


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(Charlesworth, 2006, pp. 73). Moreover, the role of the state in the CBD project was negligible, as the leadingpoliticians’ scope overlapped with the one of Solidere and Council for Development and Reconstruction.

Finally, the attitude of Solidere towards the general public and the professionals in architecture, urbanism andplanning can be characterized as, colonialist-like, patronizing ‘we know how’ policy. This happened through themarketing campaign Solidere resorted to in Lebanon and internationally: "In Lebanon,"reads one of Solidere's ads in

the Financial Times, "everyone knows we must rebuild Beirut's city centre. We know how” (Makdisi, 1997, pp.676).Moreover, the lack of public participation or any alternative project to Solidere at the time of implementation,witnesses the same phenomenon.

“What Solidere and Harirism seem to represent is precisely the withering away of the state, whatever one might havecalled a public sphere or civil society, and their final and decisive colonization by capital. And perhaps it is for this

reason that the company avoids any discussion of Lebanese national identity except in terms of visual pastiche” (Makdisi, 1997, pp. 693).

As Elsheshtawy (2008) depicts the struggles of Middle Eastern cities to find their place in the 20th century and raises

the question of ‘return of colonialism’, but in different forms from what it used to represent, Beirut certainly falls intothe description. For a city that lost the main part of its history through terrible war destruction, the next step of

selectively destructing pieces of what remained, represented a step towards confirmation of the colonialist characterof its future development. So did the ongoing struggle to modernize it, to make it visually appealing and similar to the

Western world and place it onto a map of global competitiveness.


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SHWAYRI, S. (2008): “Chapter 4. From Regional Node to Backwater and Back to Uncertainty: Beirut, 1943-2006”, inELSHESHTAWY, Y. (eds) (2008) The evolving Arab city : tradition, modernity and urban development , London:

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