Goodbye Beirut

Goodbye traffic and honking taxis, self prescribed driving rules and fancy cars.
Goodbye lottery ticket sellers, shoe shine boys and the random Syrian boys along the corniche
Goodbye Cafe Younis, Gloria Jeans, Auntie Selwas and Ferdinands. Later Hamra.
Goodbye Downtown and Solidare, Gemayze and Ashrefeih. Goodbye Beirut.

I will miss the call to prayer, the kak hawker and the three hour power outages.
I will miss AUB campus, the Corniche and the maze of streets in Hamra.
I will miss the Mediterranean the weather and the amazing fresh veggies and fruits.
I will, of course, miss my friends, my colleagues and the students (that didn't complain when it came to grades)

So Goodbye Middle East. Goodbye Levant. Goodbye my ancestral grounds. 

Thanks for the good times and the safety.
Thanks for the amazing people, friends and adventures.

Lets do it again sometime soon.

The Final Projects

While I only mention it briefly here within my blog, most of my time is spent in the halls of the Architecture and Design Department. This spring I taught a "vertical studio" of 3rd and 4th year students with Carla. The project was a complex one asking the students to rethink their dilapidated infrastructure by hybridizing it with the financial success of the tourism boom. Their work throughout the semester was a struggle, to think about the systems operating, the limitations, the social and economic issues and, finally, their dedication in actually representing their ideas visually.

I get asked a lot what I think of the students here - especially compared to those in the states. Its a hard question, seeing that I am a young instructor and that only being here one year doesn't make me an expert. But I have had the opportunity to work with 2nd - 5th year students and, with living here, I can make a couple of quick observations. The students are creative, their ideas, visions match those of any department I have been in, seen or read about. But (and I wonder if this is a global crisis) their dedication to the work, their passion for the completion of a project is lacking. I wonder if the adoption of the laptop as the tool for design has limited the students to ground themselves in a project with their colleagues in a studio environment. While provided a spacious environment to work in (open 24 hours) they didn't make use of the facilities and the time they had to complete the project. They are strong designers, good talkers...only they lack the energy to produce good projects.

But you can see for yourself. Below are some links to the students work this semester. They are mix of projects ranging from urban farms/energy production to zoos and methane gas capture....to water catchment and recycling spas.

The Class Wiki
Site analysis
Their final projects

I have really enjoyed the students, the studios and the department. I think I learned more than they did.

Go South...or as far as you can

The Goal: to go as far south as possible. The Fear: to go as far south as possible. I won't go into detail on why, but just remember that time doesn't pass for long without an "event" occurring on the Lebanon - "Occupied Territories" border, and the current threat of a "build up" in the area doesn't make for a carefree expedition. (read more here on details). But I have to say I was proven wrong. Way wrong. This was my final road trip while here in Lebanon. I of course didn't do it alone.

Haitham, a Lebanese national (though many thought I looked more Leb than he did!!! (sorry!), and myself set off on a two day road trip south of the city of Beirut to explore the villages, the border region, turtle reserves, Lake Qaraoun and the dam.

First stop was Tyr and the old city. A maze of dilapidated homes that appeared to be strung together by an outdated infrastructure - the city itself still in need of investment after years of neglect. Then on to the Orange House and the Turtle Reserve. This true find is easy to get to (by car) yet as a foreigner, I had to get a special permit from the government in Saida. Once through, we were greeted by our amazing hosts and shown around the beautiful complex of gardens, plantations of bananas, goats, dogs and of course the incredibly quiet and desolate (unofficial) turtle reserve run by Mona and Habiba.There dedication to the cause of protecting some of the last stretches of beach for the annual laying of turtle eggs makes them heros in my view. We woke early at 5:30 to walk the beach with them to assist in observing and documenting the nests...unfortunately, that day the turtles didn't arrive. But they say the numbers are promising, but the funding is bleak and the threats huge. That day we had tar stuck to the bottoms of our feet. It seems a boat had dumped tar into the sea and it had washed up along the shore line...so sad.

Hitting the Beaches

Summer comes into the Levant without even a hint of spring. With the Mediterranean coast running along its western edge, its easy to escape the concrete surfaces for some sand, beach, or just some patches of grass. As mentioned before, the concept of public space is hard to define here, and the idea of a public beach, while present, isn't celebrated like in other countries along desirable bodies of water. For the Lebanese its clubs. They line the coast from top to bottom, and whether one likes their positioning, they are nearly the only option. (there are several beaches in Beirut and outside that are claimed as "public", but they are untended, have unclean water, and mostly not family friendly).

So in the past several weeks I have been visiting several beach clubs in the north and in the south. They are as diverse in some ways as the "villages" that make up the City of Beirut. They can be as fancy as those like Eddie Sands, where one can witness the likes of the upper elite strutting around in bikinis and high heels with pounding beats provided by the resident DJ. Or you can enjoy the reggae and celebratory styles of something like Pierre's, or the similar urban party at St. Georges. I preferred south of the city, where they say the better beaches are, with the likes of Lazy B or traveling all the way to the border for some beaches around Tyre and the nature reserves. check out a list of beaches

Of course, this all seems a bit excessive, as things can be here. And there are other reasons to avoid such "recreation." as this article explores, not everyone is welcome at such clubs.

Here is a glimpse of the sand, water and skin.
and some more here..

Mrs. Lebanese-America

The Lebanese immigrant who won the Miss USA 2010 pageant comes from a family that stood out for its tolerance in a religiously divided country, relatives said Monday. Rima Fakih, 24, was born into a powerful Shiite family in a village in southern Lebanon that was heavily bombed during the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war. But she and her sister said the family celebrates both Muslim and Christian faiths and prefer to be referred to as Lebanese, Arabs or Arab-Americans.

Read more

Bourdain Returns to Beirut

Bit of a buzz around here at Anthony Bourdain returns to Beirut to shoot his series No Reservations. The last time he was here he got caught up in the Israili invasion...That episode is available on You Tube is a must see to get a feel for when Lebanon isn't at its best: Watch the Videos here

The Khamsin

Image: The Cyprus Informer


This past Sunday the city of Beirut was under a haze of dust. I was warned about this spring storm...it was warm, dry air and it comes from as far away as Northern Africa. While the image of this wasn't as amazing as these, it could be felt with itchy eyes and some allergy irritation.

This phenomenon occurs all over the Middle East and some portions of the Mediterranean and can be as large as 400 miles across. Here they locals refer to it as "the 50's" or "kham-seen"...  In the Middle East (Turkey, Syria, Jordan, etc they are referred to as Haboob, Simum, Black Blizzards. Or on the Mediterranean as Sirocco, Yugo and Ghibli. From what i can tell, in Cyprus they refer to them as Coptic Storms.

These storms and their regions of impact have been identified and mapped: "Sudan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf, are the regions that reported the greatest occurrence of dust storms. Dust storms in Iran, north-eastern Iraq and Syria, the Persian Gulf and southern Arabian Peninsula are more frequent in summer. In western Iraq and Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, northern Israel, northern Arabian Peninsula and southern Egypt they occur mainly in the spring, while in southern Israel and in the Mediterranean parts of northern Egypt, in winter and spring."


The Coptic Chart
Blogger Video
NASA

The Eco-Village

Tuck up into the Chouf mountains is the Eco-Village. A community of only a handful, working in natural construction materials, growing and harvesting, cooking and eating for visitors to experience.

The village is located within a valley, on a river that feeds the farms and waters the orchards and livestock. Ducks, goats and a collection of dogs roams the land.

A very nice break from the city.

The BCD

The Beirut Central District, or better known as Solidere, always gets a reaction from a visitor to Beirut. The architecture (old and new), the car-less, heavily guarded pedestrian walkways, the international couture boutiques or the remains of centuries of the cities war torn past are an apparition within the heart of this city on the sea.

It could be something about the lack of people. The strange feeling of not being in Beirut anymore. While the site of these recent constructions are placed upon the remains of a downtown and souks nearly leveled by civil war between 1975 to 1990, they don't yet seem integrated into the city as a whole...but what neighborhood in Beirut seems integrated to the city?

Infrastructure and Tourism

This semesters design studio is the third year and fourth year architecture students combined. I am co-teaching with Carla Aramouny and our studio of 18 has really impressed me. Here is the basis for our course:

ABSTRACT

The studio will begin by zooming in on four main infrastructural sectors: water, transportation, energy, and waste. Through analysis and mappings, their conditions and effect on greater Beirut will be explored, moving from the macro scale of the city to the micro scale of an architectural project. Students will then be asked to re-imagine the relationship between these public works within the peripheral city limits, and to propose a new architectural intervention that hybridizes infrastructure with tourist and public programs.

The future city is primarily an infrastructural one, overlapping networks and systems with our physical environment. The necessity and proliferation of these networks are detaching more and more programmatic usage from their dominating structures, forcing a rereading of our city’s fabric. Our cities are now collections of highways, sewage systems, electric power lines, and water channels. How can we re-instigate architectural and programmatic strategies into the heart of infrastructural systems? How can our built environment be re-imagined to couple the existence of such necessary networks with performative public usage? The interest in this studio will be to investigate infrastructure as sites of inquiry for architectural interventions. Tourism, the country’s most flourishing sector, and traditionally the typical lens for reading Beirut, will be considered as an essential framework for the development of such projects.

Throughout the investigation, sustainable thinking will be considered as an inherent need in our built environment. How can we propose new architectural strategies that impact our infrastructural cities within the impending crises of energy, environment and climate change? How can these projects once superimposed with infrastructure utilize tourist and public amenities to create attractor points in the city? The interest will be to propose hybrid architectural programs that support the diverse sectors, and help each sustain the other through repurposing, rehabilitating and reinvigorating.

You can follow us on our class wiki: http://beirutstudiowiki2010.wikispaces.com/
 
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The Healthy Basket

 

Organic Food in Beirut! It has become my routine to pick up my Healthy (half) Basket across the street from my house every Wednesday morning. They are a Coop of sorts that collects Lebanese organic produce from all over the country. My pick up is Wednesday, but they have delivery/pick up also on Mondays and Fridays. Nothing is better than getting the little surprise weekly, sorting it out in my kitchen and coming up with creative things to do with all the stuff. Its the refrigerator game gone raw.

This week: 

Bananas, Oranges and Lemons

Little Zucchinis (Kusa), Cucumbers,
Carrots, Green Onions and Swiss Chard
Lettuce, fresh Basil and Mint.

Some Organic Hot Spots for the Foodie Beiruti:

-Healthy Basket: Hamra, Adon Street (Across from St Ritas Church) P: 961_1747831
-Several Shops in Hamra area: One on Sheikh Elias Gaspard (Western Makdissi) on block before Sadat

And another near AUH on Cairo Street and Souraty.
-Most Grocery Store chains offer Bjorg and Bob's Red Mill products

-Bread Republic and Bread: offering organic food and breads
-There is an Microbiotic place in Achrafieh area, across from Hotel Dieu De France on Jean Dom
-And of course Souk el Tayeb every Saturday morning in Saifi Village (and also in Hamra on Tuesdays at Bread Republic)

This will be outdated fast as things are popping up all the time.

The Village of Beirut, December 1970

I live in Hamra, the neighborhood adjacent to AUB. I have been told I am a "Hamra snob" as I don't like to leave its grid of streets...I am okay with that.  I was sent this great description of the community and culture. So much of this hasn't changed in 40 years. (thanks Haitham for the link)

The Village of Beirut by Paula Stern

Pecha Kucha Beirut 7

Very excited to be presenting at Pecha Kucha Beirut 7...
I will be sharing the Pallet House project that I worked on with The World Hands Project.

Lamb & Kebbeh!

Of course the food is great here...one doesn't even have to ask that. This is one of my favorite finds...simple and so good...ground lamb and eggs...wow...( I need to find the names for these...Haitham...any help?)

As some of you may know, I grew up with Lebanese food, or at least a version of it that had been adapted after 100 years of living in the states. I grew up eating kebbeh nayeh. Think "beef tartar" with grains of wheat...smashed with a fork, smothered in olive oil and salted and peppered...(and yes, they do that here too dad!) I was eating that stuff before I had teeth and my mom has mentioned that she isn't sure she would do it again knowing all the issues with the meat industry in the states. But, I survived and hadn't eaten it in a long time - it was heavy...But here the kebbeh is made from goat or lamb...and its light...really good...You can see a bit of it in the first kebbeh photo..the reddish ball on the side of the dish.

The images above are examples of kebbeh that has been baked, fried or stuffed. The top is a patty and the bottom one rolled and stuffed (again, not sure of names, any help would be great). The book "Rural Taste of Lebanon" by Yazbeck has a section on kebbeh and gives the following recipe found in northern Lebanon... kebbeh zghortawiye: made of lamb or goat, mixed with burghal. The meat is shaped in big balls and stuffed with animal fat, pine nuts and chopped onions. And another one that is like a casserole, spread in a dish with saute onions and pine nuts and oven baked.

And there is so much more...of course there is kebabs of all types...rolled and pinched on skewer sticks...you get choices of meat mixed with nuts, pomegranate, etc...

Things that made me go...hummmmm

Nothing gives you a perspective on life like relocating it to another city, another continent, another culture. Some of the little things we take for granted just can't be expected, and living here Beirut is no exception. Below are the little things I have found that have made me question, made me laugh and in some instances...just hurt! (Remember I am an architect)



















The marble threshold: usually located in a position to border off a "wet area" (like kitchen or bathroom). I have found these toe-breaking room dividers to be an interesting addition. I have one at my door to my bathroom and at the divider of my kitchen and living room. I believe its used to keep the water in the room while washing the floors... It gets my guests every time!



















This floor drain feature complements the marble toe-breaker above. Located in those defined "wet room" spaces are these floor drains with metal lids. When you wash the floor you just take of the lid, throw down a bucket of water and slosh it around...kinda brilliant. Why was our version of this those domestic central vacuum systems from the 70's?



















Electricity: The power distribution in Beirut isn't constant. Parts of the country are without municipal power during the day, and in Beirut, parts of the city are out of power for 3 hours a day. This rotates daily, and on my calendar I have a list of the times (6am-9am, 9am-noon, noon-3pm and 3pm-6pm). I am fortunate enough to have a generator with a switch shown above (the box to the left is the breaker that i also use quite often!). I have to remember to switch off any heating elements while on the generator, hot water heater off and have to decide between washing clothes or running the heat. But really it has become apart of my routine here and the appreciation one has for electricity grows ten fold. (And what a great excuse to just sleep in till 9am when the power is out in the morning?) domestic/small scale energy production is actually a bigger discussion topic (pollution, access, oil, etc) and I will blog about it later.

Called to Prayer

Call to prayer from outside my balcony.
(audio only)






Friday's Service...

Lunch at the Captains

This afternoon I was invited over to my landlords for a Saturday afternoon lunch. He has been asking me numbers of times to come over, and now that I am in between semesters, I have some time to break and enjoy a bit of Lebanese hospitality.  I was lucky enough to meet Mr. Ghanoum or Captain, as everyone refers to him , just after my arrival here in Beirut.  A colleague at the university had been apartment hunting and was kind enough to pass his number to me. It turns out that the apartment was perfect and him and his family even greater. I have been over a number of times already in the past three months. They live only two blocks over in a 150 year old home overlooking the sea. The Captain is a retired pilot and tells many a story of living in New York City making once a week flights to Anchorage Alaska and/or Amsterdam. But now he and his family are back in Beirut, where he watches sports on his big flat screen tv and plays tennis on the AUB courts.

This Saturday I was asked to come over to lunch as his daughter and family would be there.  Lunch was at two. I had to actually call my local Lebanese friend to find out if that meant 2:30? In surprise he said it actually meant a little before 2. I grabbed some nice little chocolates from a local bakery on my way over and arrived about 10 minutes before 2.

Though the Ghanoum’s do live in a 150 year old home, several stories have been added about 30 years ago. They live on what was the top floor, the third. Their home is a classic Lebanese layout with a central living room that stretches front to back with three arches as the windows. The main living room and dining room are there filled with many a gilded item, an elephant tusk and an incredible hookah pipe collection.  The bedrooms are off to one side of this space and the other side houses the kitchen and what I will refer to as the “parlor.”

I arrive with the captain in his “parlor” with his hookah pipe at his feet. He doesn’t smoke those flavored kinds, but the real deal, plain ol’ tobacco. The room is lined with couches on both sides with one end in book shelves crowded with family photos and a tv. The other end is walled with full glass French doors with amazing views of the sea. We walk out to the balcony to take a look at the sea and enjoy the incredibly warm and clear day for January. Across the street a 30 story luxury condo is going up, now with only the underground parking slabs in rebar exposed…the yellow construction crane makes its way across the site, the extent of its steel arm within only one meter of the Captains home.

I am early and we sit on the couches. I am served some fresh squeezed orange juice (one cannot imagine drinking cartoned juice after living here) and watch as the Ethiopian and Filipino maids make their way around the place, preparing the lunch. We talk of subjects like “do you like politics?” without getting into detail. “Do you play any sports” gets nowhere with me, so we talk about hiking and the recent plane crash and the missing black box. Around 2:30 the family arrives, the daughter and brother in law  and their two cute little curly topped girls.  We make our way over to the dining room, the table set before the hookah pipe collection lit up from behind.

Where I get to go everyday

AUB and the Architecture Department. I've been told that out of the entire city of Beirut, the campus of AUB makes up 1/4 of its green space. Unfortunately its not public, fortunately, I get to go there everyday for work. I leave about 7 minutes from campus. So all this time, I have spoke about the city and the greater country...and haven't mentioned about what I actually have been doing day to day.

The University was founded in 1866 by American missionaries, but now stands today as a secular, private and independent university. The student body is primarily Lebanese. There are approx. 7,500 students on this amazing 72 acre seaside campus.

I teach in the Architecture and Design Building in the faculty of Engineering and Architecture. With classes almost daily, teaching studios and elective courses...

Here are some websites of the student work:
http://www.beyondgreenfall09.blogspot.com/
http://beyondgreenfinal.blogspot.com/
http://beyondgreencasestudy.blogspot.com/

And additional photos from campus


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The Ancient Ruins of Baalbek

Some elements of the Ruins of Baalbek date to the 3rd millennium BC and some could say is one of the oldest civilizations on earth. The temple is thought to have begun in 60 BC by the Romans...its interesting to note that this wasn't a "city" as we think of it, but a kinda of tourist site for pilgrams. The site, located within the water rich Bekaa Valley was considered sacred and the temples exerted influence on politics as much on religion. The Temple of Jupiter has the largest columns in the world at 22.9 m hight with a width of 2.2 m - with today only 6 of the 54 still standing.

The other well perserved momument is the Temple of Bacchus (Venus/Astarte) completed around 150 AD. It is larger than the Parthenon in Athens.

And finally we strolled thru the neighborhoods surrounding the ruins. The vernacular architecture is a huge reminder of greater Mediterrean architecture and even the styles of Northern New Mexico. But even more important is the incredible amount of decay they are experienceing and the families that are living within. The amount of mishandling of funds from World Bank and the millions pocketed was expressed by the friendly people that let us take a look.

See more photos here


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Where am I?

The Kingdom of Jordan

Just around the corner from Lebanon is Jordan. Four quick days, a rental car and you can experience a lot. I traveled with friends Haitham and Ben...

Amman:
Population 2.5 million. Pretty much the place to fly into, sleep, eat Falafel and leave. The city is a mess of hills and valleys with roads and buildings wrapping and clinging on. Not the best place to get lost in, and not the best place to walk.

Petra:
They say it takes 3 hours from Amman. Make time for 5...especially if you are taking the Kings Highway (speed bump!). Its all worth it of course, Petra being right out of film and fantasy...experiencing it hardly makes it any more real. Those Nabataeans were crafty little people. We caught the sunset on the Treasury, and the early morning light on the hundreds of other ruins and tombs...( I really did try to edit my photos!)

The Dead Sea:
A mad dash out of Petra to get to the Dead Sea in time for some last minute sunlight. Up the Dead Sea Highway and into the oily-feeling Sea. You do float, You can't swim...and that cut on your hand...oh, close your eyes too... ("ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch" - Ben).

Jerash:
The Roman city, once of 20,000 still stands in amazement. Located an hour north of Amman this 2000 something year old place is...big.


Umm Al-Jimal:
The last stop on our whirl-wind adventure led us out east on the Iraqi highway. The city of Umm Al-Jimal was founded in the 1st century BC by again those crafty Nabataeans. The place is constructed out of black basalt rock...and was completely empty except for us...along with the rains rolling in, it felt like we were walking in on some post-apocoliptic war zone.