Beirut Memorialised in Ruins

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Disciplinary Transformations – THE MEMORIAL

Initially, the propositions of conceptualising a hypothetical project for a contemporary memorial seemed overwhelming and inherent of sceptical connotations. A memorial signifies a place of remembrance and commemoration to communities which have been obstructed by natural or purposeful atrocities.  These places once developed are highly politicized sites which only ever reach out to the minorities of the nations affected.

 The premise of my project attempts to challenge the traditional ideologies and representations of memorials and memorialisation. The claim is these typical sites are not an authentic physical manifestation of memory. The typical memorial is inherent of only amnesia like responses. It is only the invitation of relative connection with the typical memorial that allows the subject to feel as though they are experiencing a genuine affect of memory. It is this ideological conditioning that actually saturates the memorial with multifarious contradictions.

 This projects attempts to analyse experiences and spaces of a modern urban memory. I have attempted to provide some basic understanding of the relationship between memory, urban memory and its activeness in the urban environment. Such elements as typological identification are a type of anthropomorphism which became reference points for the production of my project.

Bachoura- a suburb located in the Beirut, Lebanon. It is one of the oldest urban environments that exist within Beirut city and is home to buildings from as early as the 1800s. The stratification of urban memory is here evident and it is this site that manifests an authentic physical manifestation of memory. The site is loaded with the Ruin and due to the ideological view of the ruin in this context have been forced to become part of Beirut’s urban amnesia.

 These Ruins are highly domesticated spaces. The ruins in Beirut are transformed from this highly private domestic space to an unencapsulated voyeuristic space. The property remains private but with the violent removal of the envelope the ruin presents itself as a space of voyeurism with a threshold that cannot be transgressed. This space has been stripped bare of its privacy; however it can never become public because of its DNA. The ruin remains in the in-between , liminal – interstitial zone. What interested me the most was the uncanny nature of the domestic space in this context in relation to the loss of the façade there is no longer an intersection between the eyes of the observer and the interior of the building.

Please follow the link below to view the final project.

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/2723171/Beirut%20Memorialised%20in%20Ruins.pdf