Guiding – as it is commonly understood – is not about creating; it’s about helping. The guide has no goal other than to lead someone safely to the destiny of their choice. The guide is skilled; he or she actually can lead the way, but does so without ambition beyond delivering quality service. The guide sells safety where risk is involved.

With The Guide, VOLUME presents a diverse collection of guides and attempts to guide. From strange maps, bike tours and magnetic navigation belts to the conception of Paris’ 13th arrondissement as a series of islands; here, the guide is understood as not simply a service or selling point, but as an exploratory tool, a generator for a proactive engagement with the city.

As a supplement to this issue of VOLUME, we also present the separate publication Beyroutes, a guidebook to Beirut, one of the grand capitals of the Middle East.

As a supplement to VOLUME #22, we also present the separate publication Beyroutes, a guidebook to Beirut, one of the grand capitals of the Middle East. Beyroutes presents an exploded view of a city which lives so many double lives and figures in so many truths, myths and historical falsifications. Visiting the city with this intimate book as your guide makes you feel disoriented, appreciative, judgmental and perhaps eventually reconciliatory. Beyroutes is the field manual for 21st century urban explorer.

With contributions by Maureen Abi Ghanem, Romy Assouad, Hisham Awad, Cleo Campert, Joane Chaker, Tony Chakar, Zinab Chahine, Steve Eid, Christian Ernsten, Christiaan Fruneaux, Edwin Gardner, David Habchy, Mona Harb, Pascale Harès, Jasper Harlaar, Janneke Hulshof, Hanane Kaï, Karen Klink, Niels Lestrade, Mona Merhi, Elias Moubarak, Tarek Moukaddem, Kamal Mouzawak, Joe Mounzer, Alex Nysten, Nienke Nauta, Ahmad Osman, Haig Papazian, Pieter Paul Pothoven, Rani al Rajji, Joost Janmaat, Jan Rothuizen, Ruben Schrameijer, Reem Saouma, Michael Stanton and George Zouein.

Beyroutes was initiated by Studio Beirut in collaboration with Partizan Publik, Archis and the Pearl Foundation. Supported by Prince Claus Fund, Fund Working on the Quality of Living and the Netherlands Embassy in Lebanon.

ARCHIS Never Walk Alonely Planet series - city guides with an eye for people.

Just in time before Christmas we launched Volume 22, The Guide and Beyroutes at the Athenaeum magazine shop. There were ‘bitterballen’, sparkles, booze and a spectacular last minute arrival of the issue straight from the printer. Enjoy the photo’s together with the warm wishes from the entire Volume crew for a happy christmas, good parties, and a incredible new year.

Signed; Lilet, Arjen, Valerie (who made the pictures) Rory, Timothy, Jonathan, Christian and Edwin

We invite you to join us for the launch of our latest issue, VOLUME #22 The Guide, and the special supplement publication Beyroutes: A guide to Beirut.

Athenaeum News Centre, Spui, Amsterdam, December 22, 5-7pm

Both publications come together in a single packet, and form part of your subscription.

About this issue

Guiding – as it is commonly understood – is not about creating; it’s about helping. The guide has no goal other than to lead someone safely to the destiny of their choice. The guide is skilled; he or she actually can lead the way, but does so without ambition beyond delivering quality service. The guide sells safety where risk is involved.

With The Guide, VOLUME presents a diverse collection of guides and attempts to guide. From strange maps, bike tours and magnetic navigation belts to the conception of Paris’ 13th arrondissement as a series of islands; here, the guide is understood as not simply a service or selling point, but as an exploratory tool, a generator for a proactive engagement with the city.

As a supplement to this issue of VOLUME, we also present the separate publication Beyroutes, a guidebook to Beirut, one of the grand capitals of the Middle East. Beyroutes presents an exploded view of a city which lives so many double lives and figures in so many truths, myths and historical falsifications. Visiting the city with this intimate book as your guide makes you feel disoriented, appreciative, judgmental and perhaps eventually reconciliatory. Beyroutes is the field manual for 21st century urban explorer.

Contributors

The Guide: Arjen Oosterman, Jan van Grunsven, Ole Bouman, Rory Hyde, Atelier Bow-Wow, Michael Kubo, Edwin Gardner, Filip Mischelwitsch, Jonathan Hanahan, Louisa Bufardeci, Sunny Bains, Anastassia Smirnova, Thomas Daniell, Kate Rhodes, Naomi Stead, Thomas Kilpper, Lucy Bullivant, Christian Ernsten, Charles Esche + The Detroit Unreal Estate Agency (Andrew Herscher a.o.)

VOLUME Magazine #22 was conceived and edited by Archis. Supported by the Mondriaan Foundation and the University of Michigan.

Beyroutes: With contributions by Maureen Abi Ghanem, Romy Assouad, Hisham Awad, Cleo Campert, Joane Chaker, Tony Chakar, Zinab Chahine, Steve Eid, Christian Ernsten, Christiaan Fruneaux, Edwin Gardner, David Habchy, Mona Harb, Pascale Harès, Jasper Harlaar, Janneke Hulshof, Hanane Kaï, Karen Klink, Niels Lestrade, Mona Merhi, Elias Moubarak, Tarek Moukaddem, Kamal Mouzawak, Joe Mounzer, Alex Nysten, Nienke Nauta, Ahmad Osman, Haig Papazian, Pieter Paul Pothoven, Rani al Rajji, Joost Janmaat, Jan Rothuizen, Ruben Schrameijer, Reem Saouma, Michael Stanton, George Zouein

Beyroutes was initiated by Studio Beirut in collaboration with Partizan Publik, Archis and the Pearl Foundation. Supported by Prince Claus Fund, Fund Working on the Quality of Living and the Netherlands Embassy in Lebanon.

The Prince Claus Fund and the Netherlands Foundation for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture invite you to a lunch lecture by Colombian architect and 2009 Principal Prince Claus Laureate Simón Vélez.

Simón Vélez’s aesthetic and technical innovations in bamboo have enhanced its construction potential and challenged mainstream architectural trends. He invented a new method to build foundations and roofs, which transformed one of the world’s oldest building materials, namely bamboo, into a modern resource that meets the strictest international construction regulations and can even outperform steel.

For this contribution, on the 16th of December Simón Vélez will receive the 2009 Principal Prince Claus Award.

What: Lunch lecture
When: Thursday 17 December 2009, 12.00 – 13.00 hrs
Where: Zuiderkerk, Zuiderkerkhof 72, Amsterdam, NL
Register: www.princeclausfund.org

This lecture is organised in cooperation with Dienst Ruimtelijk Ordening Amsterdam, Tolhuistuin en Archis/Volume.

Image: Simón Vélez, Crosswater Ecolodge, Nankun Mountains, China.

The 5th edition of the AFFR gathered an eclectic crowd of architects, artists, film-makers, curators and designers for three days of intense programming of shorts, documentaries, long features and arthouse videos. This year, the festival promised to frame the city and its architecture in the midst of the financial crisis; with the selection reflecting on potential urban and architectural futures.

The themes presented explored the highs and lows of architecture: West Coast modernism, Russian Avant-Garde and Architecture of Hope, the legacy of Jane Jacobs and a rich series of city documentaries exploring the ‘Great Planning Disasters’. The vast number of films turned the weekend into a challenge, and the need to strategize and tailor a programme quickly became everyone’s motto. I managed to watch 26 films including 18 shorts, most of them connected to the ‘crisis’ headline of the festival and the collective city.

Starting off with one of the first cinematographic reports on the effects of the mortgage crisis, Fresno is a documentary about how a group of Skateboarders have made new uses for the growing number of empty homes and swimming pools in this city just North of Los Angeles. Mixed with interviews of politicians, real estate brokers and property investors, the result is a rich account of the rapid changes that transformed American suburbia making it a new site for urban exploration. The problem does not stop at the individual home or the residential community; in Malls R Us, the film makers depict a much broader concern for American Suburbia, filming shopping malls closing down and leaving behind huge footprints of closed and gated spaces.

However, the intention here is not only to document the changes, as it is to suggest possible alternatives. In highlighting the growing gap between architecture and construction, the Festival has intended to make bridges between the presentation of the plan and the complexities of its realization. In a special screening, the London-based design practice Squint Opera presented their work turning documents and planning proposals into cinematic experiences. Large-scale projects such as London Olympics and Abu Dhabi 2030 are proposed in the form of hyper-real images so to communicate architecture and urban developments. For the architectural audience, the visual rendering comes as an innovative design, which ‘brings to life’ the complexities of the architectural drawings and models. The use of text placed over the images replaces a spoken narrative, presenting key features of the urban plan. In one or two occasions, the quotes highlight the “authentic and progressive character” of Abu Dhabi, but the simulated environments are imaginary places, representing the city as a series of slick, safe and ordered spaces. These contradictions turn both the urban plan and the film itself into an animated parody. Animation here becomes a crucial element not only in place-making but also in selling the image of a city to prospective clients and developers, though arguably a very generic city. This is cinema as a political tool at its best.

Squint Opera, Abu Dhabi 2030

In presenting Squint Opera’s video montages, the festival programmers question the nature and definition of the architecture film. Indeed, their selections span across all genres of architectural cinema. There are, however a few classics, including the architect tribute-documentary which reads just like a monograph; a page after page, project after project, survey of the architect’s work replacing the subjective photographic eye with pleasing slow camera tracking, as in Infinite Space: The Architecture of John Lautner. Another classic has to be the sci-fi approach, framing the future of the city built either from sets and backdrops or fragments of the existing city such as the modernist residential houses in Woody Allen’s Sleepers.

Amongst the variety of screenings and topics explored, one of the highlights for me was the Shorts program, which showcased films not only connected to the themes of this year’s festival, but also resonated with the ’Collective City’ exhibition at the International Architecture Biennale at the NAi in Rotterdam. The programs ‘Modernist Architecture of Hope’, ‘Pre Architecture’ and the ‘Block’ all open another rear window, looking at some of the larger architectural manifestations of the 20th Century and their contemporary everyday use. Whilst the West Coast Modernist Architecture screenings idealized an image of architecture (as in Infinite Space, or Visual Acoustics, on the photography of Julius Shulman), European and Asian modernist architecture is embedded in ideas of failed utopias, disillusions and decaying urbanism framed in the XL housing blocks.

Chris Chong Chan Fui, still from Block B, 2008

In Block B, we are immediately immersed in a frontal view of a housing block which becomes a living photograph. The enormity of the building is examined closely through quotidian stories, trivial actions, dialogues, and sounds, animating the uniform and rigid structure. The stillness of the camera reflects on the stillness of the building, demanding that we contemplate its complexities and its residents, “being connected but distant”.

Jean-Louis Schuller’s contrasting lens in Chungking Dream walks into another mass housing development, where 10,000 people - immigrants from all over the world - squeeze into 5 blocks of 17 stories high. Chungking Mansions, a cheap accommodation in Hong Kong, houses a paradise of multiculturalism and low-end globalization, turning the residential building into a fully functional city with its labyrinth of informal guesthouses, curry restaurants, African bistros, clothing shops and foreign exchange offices.

Jean-Louis Schuller, Chungking Dream

In Quadro, Lotte Schreiber portrays the monumentality of a 1960’s apartment block built in the Italian coastal city of Trieste. Sitting atop a hill, the building appears to be floating in space, disconnected from the surrounding city. Her other film Borgate, recomposes a declining neighbourhood of Rome with tight and slow-tracking shots surveying the topography of the urban landscape composed of facades, wide streets and small architectural details. The black and white film provides a dramatic contrast between a nostalgic look back to neo-realism, highlighted by references from Fellini to Pasolini, and the violent intrusion of almost subliminal and abstract sequences.

Lotte Schreiber, still from Quadro

In both films, the dramatic intensity created between the cinematography and powerful music, serve as a reminder that housing projects and post-war blocks still bear the dystopic stigmas of our contemporary urban fabric. In reference to the spaces she documents, Schreiber states that “this is where the city ends and no-man’s-land begins.”

Unfortunately, it was quite difficult to see how the other two features fit into the “Block” program, simply because they did not use the housing block as a backdrop. However, in Tallagh, a 25 minute maybe-too-long feature, a group of kids take over the empty streets of one of Dublin residential suburbs and gather urban residue in preparation of a bonfire finale. Although the point of ‘collectivity’ in these uniform housing estates is made through the engagement of the youngest residents, the film’s seemingly endless narrative felt a little out of context. At that point, the audience seemed to resent the next film in the screening, which presented yet another abstract sequence of shots of windows and facades of apartment buildings merged into a backdrop of film clippings. Thankfully, the soothing music of Franz Schubert made the whole experience much more pleasurable.

As filmic experience, the short features have an evocative way of representing the city and its many fragments as the central protagonist of the narrative. Thom Andersen claims that “movies aren’t about places, they’re about stories”. However, the films selected for the weekend - particularly in the Shorts program - essentially trace stories of buildings and neighborhoods, from the context in which they emerged and how they change overtime. They are framed not only as a backdrop on which to project a narrative, but also as a means to position architecture and the urban condition as a protagonist of the filmic experience. And so, architecture film festivals, however loose in their selections, come as much needed reminders of this.

Simon Pennec is a photographer and urban researcher. He contributed to the ‘Collective’ section of the IABR and his survey of collective housing as depicted in film is included in Volume #21: The Block. Simon is currently at OMA/AMO in Rotterdam.

“As a biologist, I see cities as living organisms. Pulsating bodies made up of new and dying cells and kept alive by the people flowing through their arteries. Cities grow, swell, change shape, absorb and eject. This is not about cities with a heart, but about cities as a heart; pumping oxygen and fresh blood into the greater metropolitan areas.”
- Jacqueline Cramer, minister of the Environment and Spatial Planning

Hearing these words at the closing speech of Morgen/Tomorrow - the International Urban Planning Congress held in Amsterdam – one may travel into the memory of “The Heart of the City”, theme of the 8th International Congress of Modern Architecture (CIAM VIII, 1951, Hoddesdon, England). Today, as then, it was an important moment where urban planners and architects from all around the world gathered to discuss the City as a living liveable centre (core/cuore/coeur). Still today it has a fundamental role in the balance of the expanded new (Open) City.
As an Open City enthusiast, Kees Christiaanse speech alerted to the present status of worldwide metropolises, dealing with the multiple layers of their multicultural heritage: “The enemies of the open city are the open city itself”. Thus, the coexistence of ethnic communities which do not communicate with one another (the favelas of São Paulo and the city of Jakarta were examples given) and rather just inhabit in the same metropolitan structure it is a phenomenon that must be surpassed by city government. Exploring deeper the Netherlands point of view on the Open City, Zef Hemel’s (Substituting the canceled speech of Anastasia Volynskaya’s) presented his “Free State of Amsterdam” speech in a cheerful tone of positive aura upon Planning, as described by his nine “Amsterdam Principles”. The focus on the city of Amsterdam continued in the afternoon workshop “Urban Governance and Liveable cities”, where Maarten van Poelgeest (Alderman of Amsterdam for Town and Country Planning) and Hessel Boerboom (Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations) could reveal a bit of Amsterdam projects for the future.

City and Revolution
Nevertheless, the motivation for the congress was to pay a tribute to Floor Wibaut, Amsterdam’s alderman on the beginning of the 20th century and an important city enthusiast and city revolutionary. Inevitably, thinking on the city of tomorrow is also to respect and learn with the past and its examples. Is also to think how extraordinary events, like war and revolution, have such a great impact on the city. This link was made through the emotive love-liberty imagery of the streets of Amsterdam led by the Paris 1968 Uprising that were shown as an appetizer before the beginning of the speakers’ presentation. So the question was posed… Throughout the world of today, ”Who are the new Wibauts?”

As an attempt to answer this question at this second day of congress positive cases of city revolutions worldwide were presented, namely Chicago (USA), Pittsburg (USA), Mumbai (India) and Tirana (Albania) (There were presented more city study cases in the afternoon workshops (being held simultaneously): Helsinki (Finland), Malmö (Sweden), Hamburg (Germany) and Freiburg (Germany)).

On a Chicago community study case, La Donna Redmond presented a revolutionary project involving the Food System Movement. Following a personal motivation (On a very tender age, La Donna Redmond’s son was diagnosed with several food allergies), La Donna was involved and it is still fighting for the implementation of a Soul Food System, searching for a perfect agricultural policy (there is an easy access to all kinds of fast-food but the essential vegetables are not available, unlike what we’re used to in European grocery stores) that affects the values of her community: “Revitalizing Soil is revitalizing Community”.
Pittsburgh was presented as a former flourishing industrial city that faces an identity crisis that has its roots in the 70’s. To address the uncertainty and loss of value of his community, speaker Michael J. Madison pointed out the importance of finding icons for the future, in order to put citizens in love with their city again (’Let’s go Steelers!’ is the slogan for the Pittsburgh American football team, in a clear relation with the city’s past heritage).
The Mumbai case-study was presented by P. K. Das, an architect-activist that struggles against the shrinkage of open space, brought a vision of the City from a democratic planning perspective: “Open space is a metaphor for democracy.” His demand for designing collectivity was also part of the main CIAM agenda more than 60 years ago, in order to enhance public spaces and act in comprehensive planning. The positivism of this case relies on reclaiming public spaces performed by P.K. Das, a victory over the the total apathy of city government.
Tirana, the last example, gives us a completely different vision upon the citizen’s public space appropriation. Public space was a tangible expression of the communist and previous regime, that late fell in 1990. Ten years later, when Edi Rama became city major, the people of Tirana still had a strong negative feeling towards public space. This was leading to an abusive private appropriation of the City. Starting with a low-budget project, in a period where words were meaningless, Edi Rama used color as an instrument of politics, involving the community into refurbishing the (previously damaged) city façades (for more info visit T.I.C.A). Other projects that emerged where all led by a single leitmotiv: “Beauty intimidates (Albanian) people. (…) So the only answer is to build and invest with quality.”

The purpose of this congress was to review new factors of worldwide global urbanization. These were mentioned at the conference: waste, water, food, mobility and ICT. In the case-studies shown above there is a general conception of “the Revolution(ary)” as key to make cities go through deep change, into development and growth, into the future.

Every Friday afternoon during the Open City Event Program, a local “cultural ambassador” hosts a performance, presentation or discussion related to the theme of the week. Tomorrow evening, Lilet Breddels of VOLUME magazine will present artist Thomas Kilpper and his project/competition for A Lighthouse for Lampedusa! Following a film and short lecture by Kilpper, a discussion with curator Marina Sorbello will explore the possible role of art and architecture in socio-political issues.

A Lighthouse for Lampedusa!
Almost every day there are news reports of refugees arriving at Europe’s southern shores. In 2008, about 30,000 refugees reached Europe via the Italian island of Lampedusa. Thousands drown in the sea—aid organizations estimate that one out of ten migrants die during this dangerous crossing. For the relatively small island of Lampedusa, with about 4,000 inhabitants, the endless stream of arriving migrants causes a lot of practical problems, bringing the administration to the brink of collapse. In 2008, the refugee center reached breaking point when up to 2,000 people were held in confinement under cramped conditions, in a space designed for a maximum of 700 people. Instead of helping Lampedusa to ease the situation on the ground and to relocate the migrants to the mainland like in the past, the Italian government further escalated the problem when it insisted that the detained migrants be kept on the island, and to erect a second detention- and deportation-center for them. In January 2009, the islanders went on a general strike against these plans, using the slogan: “No Alcatras in Lampedusa.” Participants expressed their desire to live on an open island: “To live from tourism and to welcome the poorest of the poor if they arrive…” (quotation of the Mayor of Lampedusa, 2009)

So far there is no end of the stream of refugees in sight. What can be done to prevent these tragic deaths? Efforts to improve and sustain living conditions in the immigrants’ country of origin would, if successful, last for decades, if not generations. Since 2007, the Berlin based artist Thomas Kilpper has pursued the idea of constructing a “Lighthouse for Lampedusa,” which is to have a double function: to provide essential orientation at sea and help to navigate refugee boats into safety, and to house a museum and cultural center, which the island still lacks. The Lighthouse is conceived as a tower and a landmark building, capable of hosting a diverse and trans-national program of communication, negotiation, exhibitions, concerts and other cultural events on its ground floor. It would serve as a place that attracts not only new visitors to the island but also local people—making Lampedusa not just a location to talk about, but also a place to learn from and listen to the ideas of others.

The refugee crisis of Lampedusa cannot be solved via military protection of the coastline or the declaration of a “state of emergency.” An international ideas competition will be launched in collaboration with the 4th International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam—“Open City: Designing Coexistence” — and Volume Magazine, calling for architects, planners, artists, and activists to develop imaginative architectural solutions for a lighthouse, museum and cultural center situated on the island. “Lighthouse for Lampedusa” calls for a humanitarian and fair immigration and integration policy in Europe based on the respect of a refugee’s human rights. Since Alexandria’s magnificent structure from 300 BC, lighthouses have been associated with welcoming strangers: Can 21st century Europe afford a different “wonder” of welcome—this time at its own shore?

4th International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam IABR
Open City: Designing Coexistence
www.iabr.nl/en/opencity

In Paris: Invisible City Bruno Latour and Emilie Hermant invite us to look at the city of Paris from a rather unusual perspective, what is usually not showed in social theory studies, to look at a city and try to unveil all the layers that constitute its life, to try to understand the several levels of complexity and their existing and possible intersections.

A city is more than the urban or social environment. That is to summarize what this study tries to show, discussing a metropolis like Paris. Complementary to that, this study also exemplifies the main concepts of Bruno Latour’s theory of actor-networking analysis of the social (explained in his book Re-assembling the social, introduction to actor-network-theory), meaning: picking an object and starting to unveil all the layers like peeling a onion, one after the other, and see where the layers intersect, where they combine, but also where they diverge. Only when we take account of the totality of layers unveiled all together in one flattened perspective instead of a hierarchical one, can we achieve a full understanding of the object we intend to study. Flattening the perspective also means assuming the point of view of the insider according to Latour, and not anymore the scientist who detaches himself from the object. On the contrary, he must be fully embedded in it to fully understand it, to fully acknowledge what the object is made of and how it functions.
The city seems to be the a perfect field to experiment with this methodology by its inherent complexity. Of course this also means that we are facing a job never to be completed but this also seems to be the case every time we debate the city, what it was, is and especially what it will be in the future, where all, or almost all the possibilities are still open. This was the time frame chosen from the conference entitled, “Tomorrow, international urban planning congress” that took place in Amsterdam last 1st and 2nd of October.

Bruno Latour approach seems useful, and the example of his study of Paris even more so, because the whole structure of the conference seemed to go into the same direction, that is, identifying the layers that constitute the problems of the city (planning from a political view, food policies, energy, definitions of urbanity), etc and by discussing them to see where they interact, where and how they establish links of interdependency. The conference wasn’t premised on Latour’s theory. It is not an exercise of it, nor do I intend to discuss the several problems this theory can bring to the analysis of a city, or any other object. The analogy here serves merely to point out the absolute need to try to understand the phenomenon of “urbanity” in the most complete way possible. This seemed to be the main concerns of those who organized this conference.

Now, I can only speak for what happen in the first day, the day I attended it, but the structure of it was common for both. In the morning several lectures and in the afternoon the program was divides between workshops (that were in fact mini-conferences where debate was promotes) or excursions, at the end we all gather again in the main building for a final lecture. If in the morning we all shared the same program, in the afternoon we had to chose what to attend, thus our experience of the conference were all different, just like it’s how our experiences of a city are different, depending on how we look at it.
The lectures, some more interesting than others, all seemed to have in common the assumption that the city is more and more where the future will happen, since we all know that already today, the majority of the world’s population live in it or close to it. The city more and more acquires an autonomous status, a political autonomy that obliges us to look at it through the concept of the “city-state” as it was the case in the ancient world. Eric Corijn (from Brussels open University and Cosmopolis research centre) discussed this perspective elaborately by tracing a history for the city back to the nineteenth century, with the industrial revolution re-shaping the city, introducing new problems, like anonymity which re-structured what was understand as “community”. Today it seems we are also in need of re-structuring some concepts associated with the city.
Increasing city autonomy also means the city’s subsistence must be re-thought, as Tim Lang (from London’s City University) remarked when discussing the issues of food policies, the city has always been a parasite in the sense that it is not able to produce all food it needs within its own territory, and it never will, but a more sustainable city is one that is able to produce more within its borders, to sponsor local production instead of importing most of its needs from far away. This goes for energy and water as well as for food.

One final word about the afternoon and specifically about the workshop I attended. We could chose from 6 different topics, from energy, sustainability, communication, and I’ve chosen the one called “Informality”, a concept discussed through 3 different examples: Latin-America with projects from the Supersudaca, Medellin with Alexandro Echeverri and Mumbai with P.K.Das. In the three examples “informality” were directly linked to the built environment and the need to improve it or to change it, but through considering the potential of “informality,” working with it and through it. The discussion had a very peculiar turn, the public struggled with the notion of absolute informality, the absence of rules, in other words how to merge planned elements with the spontaneous nature of these areas, and how to introduce elements that can connect to the anarchy but at the same time not disrupt it. The city also has an informal side to it, that what wasn’t planned. Concluding we can say we should deal more with time and not only space, or time ‘in’ space, how space is being penetrated by time and how space can allow time to be part of it. Time is of the essence when we consider future space.

Dare2Connect, a program by SICA and Felix Meritis, invites Middle East and North Africa experts to research the Arabic and Islamic culture in the Café Mediterranée series. Through discussions on current events the status-quo of Middle East culture and its relation to international developments are placed in a broader context.

In this edition, hosted by Chris Keulemans, Lebanese architect Ismail Sjeich Hassan spoke about his research “Urban Exaggerations and Exceptions – Palestinian Refugee Camp” (which he’s executing as Bakkema research fellow). He described architectural and urban possibilities of improving the life of people in the Palestinian refugee camp; Nahr el Bared in Lebanon.

Nahr el Bared before the 2007 war

Keulemans started by inviting Hassan to start with his presentation on a short history of the people living in Nahr el Bared.

Palestinian refugee camp Nahr el Bared, Lebanon, 1949

In the period of 1947 till 1948 about 400 Palestinian villages have been ‘emptied’ and ‘erased’. 30.000 of those displaced Palestinians found their way, after being displaced from their initial settlement, to Lebanon. The theme of desolation and displacement was severely emphasized by Hassan. The temporary camp of canvas tents became a semi-permanent settlement where the tents were replaced by stone buildings. Local Lebanese land-owners rented their territory out to the camp dwellers and there was a vivid trade with the Lebanese living in Tripoli and other cities in northern Lebanon. This state of affairs was violently brought to an end by a battle between the Lebanese army and the Islamic fundamentalist group Fatah al-Islam in 2007. The battle resulted in the total destruction of the camp, leaving 30.000 refugees homeless, again. Internationally, almost half a billion dollars was available to rebuild the camp. The Lebanese government and army sought to use the reconstruction as an opportunity for controlling the camp through urban design and military presence.

Nahr el Bared after the 2007 war

Hassan became involved in the Nahr el Bared Reconstruction Commission for Civil Action and Studies (NBRC). The NBRC is an organization of professionals who voluntarily work on involving the camp residents in the reconstruction of the detroyed camp. During the battle, which left the camp completely ruined, it was the aim of the NBRC to map the layout of the camp, the public areas, its landmarks, and commercial centres in order to document the urban structure and property ownership. The collective memory of the community was tapped for precise owners, locations, sizes of houses through interviews and civil participation sessions. When confronted with the government’s reconstruction plan, based on its ability to be controlled by the government and military, the NBRC, now joined by the UNWRA (UN agency United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East), proposed a urban plan based on the former camp. A plan, which expressed the perception of the camp by the Palestinians being a temporary place.

In the discussion after Hassan’s presentation, Keulemans questions were directed at the nature of the sensitive situation of the camp and the role of architects and planners in it. Hassan explained that he and his colleagues, trained architects and urban planners, naturally experienced difficulties. They were faced with the task to redesign the camp which, an operation in which they had to operate in a complex and political arena of interests of the refugees, the Lebanese government, the military and the international community.

The situation of the Palestinian refugees is delicate. They are denied the return to their homeland in historical Palestine and they neither have rights nor duties in Lebanon, for instance it is illegal for them to own property. Palestinians do not accept their status-quo in Lebanon. They regard the camp as a temporary place for living. They fight for their right to return to their original homes. This all places the reconstruction of the camp in odd daylight. The government does not allow the Palestinians to return to their homelands, nor do they grant them Lebanese citizenship. The army seeks to maximize their control over the refugees and the international community aids in rebuilding the camp, but does not in repatriating the refugees.

All these political and cultural issues present themselves in the built environment, but are not limited to that. Hassan acknowledged the importance of perception, to the eye of the outsider, the camp –old and new alike- resembles an urban area of immensely density, and spectacular urban phenomena. For the Palestinians however, the camp represents nothing more than a transitional shelter. A shelter, which lost its temporary characteristic only physically but not mentally.

Unfortunately, throughout the presentation and discussion it did not really become clear what the personal motives of Hassan were to get involved in such a delicate situation. It showed that he is committed to his work in Nahr el Bared, if only by the sheer amount and quality of his work he puts in, but Hassan’s presentation and interview was flat and lacked expression and enthusiasm. It would have been interesting if Keulemans would have unraveled more of Hassan’s motives why he got engaged in such a project.

Up to this day the plan that the NBRC presented to and accepted by the Lebanese government and military has not been executed. The historic, military controlled site of the camp of Nahr el Bared in inaccesible, and access to a wide strip around is only permitted with a day pass granted by the military. No building activities in whatever form are allowed. When building will commence is unknown.