مختارات من عمارة العالم العربي 1914-2014 (ص 22)

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مختارات من عمارة العالم العربي 1914-2014 (ص 22)

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Kazim Kenan in Ghazieh (1963-1966). The Beirut Airport, the Cité
Sportive, the Casino du Liban, and the Presidential Palace, are among
many government sponsored projects testifying to the authorities’
ambition to lend the country a modern face. The Ministry of Defense
by Wogenscky and Hindié (1962 - 1968), the Tripoli Fair started in
1962 by Oscar Niemeyer, and the Electricité du Liban headquarters
by CETA group (1965-1972), are probably the best representatives
of public architecture of the time.
When preoccupation with regional identity emerged in the mid-
1960s, local materials such as sandstone were rediscovered and
spaces like courtyards reappeared. Assem Salam’s buildings of that
period include the Serail in Sidon, and the Khashokji Mosque (1965)
recognizable with its sandstone walls topped with a faceted roof in
reinforced concrete —a modern interpretation of the dome.
1970's and 1980's
A few exceptions aside, such as the daring Interdesign showroom by
Khalil Khoury, the architecture of the 1970's seems to have developed
into a mainstream, literal application of building ordinance. Linear
balconies wrapped around dull buildings were more a product of
exploiting the total area permitted in building codes than from sound
design thinking. The experimentation of the earlier period was aban-
doned for soulless architecture.
1990's, Reconstruction and beyond
Construction continued throughout the wars that ravaged Lebanon
between 1975 and 1990, yet some degree of rupture with the past
was inevitable. The intermittent periods of unrest that shook the
country caused significant destruction. Because the core of Beirut
was the scene of fierce battles, new neighborhoods developed over-
night in the suburbs. Uncontrolled expansion reached zones hitherto
relatively protected from urbanization. The result was the detrimen-
tal loss of balance between the urban and the rural as the fabric of
rural zones was invaded by the urban building type often incongru-
ously imposed on sloping sites.
After the war, reconstruction and urban redevelopment raised the
complex issue of identity. What appeared to have been appropriately
resolved in the cultural heyday of the 1950's and 1960's emerged once
more, unresolved this time, intensified both by the delayed postmodern
wave and nostalgia for a Lebanon that was felt to have disappeared.
Two tendencies emerged: exacerbated high-tech as a vain attempt
to catch up with the world, and the recourse to pastiche that merely
testifies to the loss of tradition. Fortunately, other approaches have
appeared, devoid of superticial statements, displaying a decisive
character that could be called Situated Modernism. Such an exam-
ple is the Banque Audi headquarters by Kevin Dash (2001). A more
recent building, the CMA-CGM headquarters by Nabil Gholam archi-
tects (2005-2011) resorts to an enclosed mass of double-skin glass,
treated differently on the various sides, and manages to negotiate its
affiliation to the encountered models of the 1950s-60s with deep
shaded fagades.
Still recovering from the after-effects of the war, although the
damage these days is less the physical than psychological, archi-
tecture in today's Lebanon has lost much of its former confidence
and as a result, is too often tempted by the comfort and security of
rehearsed tradition. Care for the urban and natural environments
and relation to public space, are much more contextually needed
than superficial stylistic references or outbids on the ‘Lebanity’ of
the design.
Jordan
Jordan was founded as an independent country in 1924, after it
was under Ottoman rule forming part of the province of Syria with
Damascus as capital. Amman has been populated by waves of immi-
grants, growing very quickly with the arrival of Palestinians in 1948
and in 1967. The city benefited also from the oil booms of the 1970s
in the Gulf and later from the Gulf war in 1990, and again from the
2nd oil boom in the mid-2000s.
Amman's architecture is mostly dictated by the use of local stone
admirably served by skilled masons. In the early 1980s, Bilal Hammad
proposed a housing scheme, al-Ribat in Amman that offers the local
qualities of a neighborhood cluster inducing conviviality and keeping
with human scale. it has the merit of ageless architecture, concerned
with spatial relationships and performance more than style. In the
SOS village in Aqaba on the Red Sea (1988-1991) Jafar Tukan also
uses local skills of stone building and simple vernacular ventilation
techniques. Precast concrete is introduced to replace wooden ten-
sion members.
in the early 2000s, Amman saw a project that can be coined as
Ammani, namely the Wild Jordan Genter by architect/artist Ammar
Khammash. Perched on concrete stilts over the steep hill of Jabal
Amman, the nature center displays a natural, unadorned, and low
tech elegance demonstrating that good architecture does not require
much artifice. Resorting to many recycled materials, the building
fits in its context while not making an expected literal reference to
the locale.
The tradition of stone building found another contemporary applica-
tion with the International Academy in Amman by Khalid Nahhas (2008),
Here again, passive energy and the use of traditional materials and tech-
niques are combined with contemporary amenities. Several finishes of
Jocal stone demonstrate that the tradition is still alive.
Palestine
The history of architecture in Palestine is yet to be written. Riwaq, a
center for architectural preservation in Ramallah, did a colossal survey
of historic buildings built prior to 1948 in the West Bank, Gaza and
East Jerusalem. The remarkable work covers whole villages and towns
since 1700. Very little has been done, however, on the documentation
of its architecture of the past century, mostly after Israeli occupa-
tion, Probably more acutely than anywhere else, Palestinian heritage,
old and modern, is threatened. Occupation, systematic demolitions,
but also unprecedented rates of construction in recent times had a
tremendous impact on the quality of the built environment A record
of 20th century buildings in Palestine would certainly include the
Baroque Jacir Palace in Bethlehem (1914), the Alami House in Jericho
(1919), the Qutub House by Egyptian architect Sayed Karim in Shufat
(1960), the work of Hani Arafat in Nablus in the 1960s such as the
Municipality and the Salti House, the Hanania Commercial Building
in central Ramallah by Arkbuild (1971), the Engineering Building at
Birzeit University (1984).
Three buildings particularly stand out: the Azzahra-Ambassador
Hotel (1953) in East Jerusalem, designed by a team composed of
architects Georges Rais and Theo Canaan with engineer Bagdassar
Erdekian, symbolically built around a large oak tree. More recently,
two landmarks were built in Ramallah by architect Jafar Tukan. Both
minimalist structures make the best of their sites and inspire serenity
and meditation. Their ingredients are simple landscaping, and hum-
ble volumes with local materials. In the Yasser Arafat Mausoleum
{2007), a modest but powerful place, the prayer pavilion and the
burial chamber face each other on two sides of a path. The prayer hall
is a meditative space made of Jerusalem stone only adorned with a
frieze holding calligraphy of Quranic inscriptions, while the chamber
is elegantly mirrored in a reflecting pool. The Memorial for renowned
poet Mahmoud Darwish (2012) located on the hill of Al-Birweh Park,
includes a mausoleum, a museum, an underground theater, and an
open air theater.
Syria
The first two decades of the 20th century in Syria were marked by the
works of Fernando di Aranda who designed the Hijaz railway station
in Damascus (1908-1912) and Damascus University (1922-1923).
Another distinguished architect is Abderrazak Malas, the author of
the Fijeh Water Building.
Hotel Orient Palace by architect Antoine Tabet (1930-1933)
is an early modernist building, in line with the French rationalist
school of Auguste Perret. Michel Ecochard, the French architect
and urban designer left two important buildings. While renovating
the Azem Palace in 1936, he added a modernist house on pilotis for
the director of the newly created French Institute. At the same time,
Ecochard designed the National Museum in Damascus, completed
in 1940, combining the sobriety of medieval Syrian architecture with
the simplicity of modern architecture. Until the 1960s, the country
had a flourishing building industry. From that period, some distin-
guished designs by Egyptian architects Mustafa Shawky and Salah
Zeitoun are found, namely hospitals in Damascus Aleppo and Hama.
Borhan Tayara and Naufal Kasrawi designed the Fine Arts Society
Condominiums in Damascus (1968-73), probably the first duplex
apartment building in the country.
When the Socialist political system nationalized the profession and
gave mostly work to large companies owned by the military, it had a
devastating effect on architecture quality in the country. Several
established architects decided to relocate in Lebanon, Kuwait, or
Saudi Arabia like Naufal Kasrawi, while some remained and were able
to maneuver, like Youssef Abou Hadid with his remarkable works in
Damascus, namely the Ministry of Higher Education and the Syrian
Insurance Headquarters (1992), and Borhan Tayara who designed
the Faculty of Architecture at Damascus University. The Shagrawieh
Elementary School in As-Suwayda built with local basaltic stone in 1990
by the Mhanna brothers won the Aga Khan Award but did not succeed
at reviving traditional ways of building.
Among the distinguished buildings built around the year 2000
in Damascus is the Madrasa and Mosque Shaykh Badr-al-Din al-
Hasani by Wael Samhouri, a 9 story building, commissioned by the
Awgqaf Charity. The project is revealing of the conditions of practice
in negotiating architectural style and types of window openings with
the client.
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مختارات من عمارة العالم العربي 1914-2014

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2014

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