how can we seek remembrance in a city
that lived 15 years of war and twenty
eight years of post-war amnesia
how can violence be remembered in order
to it being forgotten eventually how can
we remember violence so that we never
fall into its trap again I was seven
years old when the Civil War broke in
Lebanon I had no memories of birth
square but my parents told me lots of
stories about cinema Rivoli Roxy Rialto
the parody Anna the automatic even the
tramway
the police station and of course
America’s red-light district but I knew
nothing about it
in 1990 the war ended or so they said I
had graduated that year from the
American University of Beirut as an
architect architects dream of building
the city we dreamt of building our
downtown but then the solid L project
came the real estate company took over
we were left out the middle of Beirut
during the war was were square was a
fighting arena it was the beginning of
the Green Line that divided the city
into East and West all along Damascus
Road all into the National Museum and
beyond it was a green line literally
green because the trees grew in the
asphalt the trees grew where life went
away when human life is absent nature
takes over
this was Damascus Road in 1990 right
after the war it was a reminder of a
no-man’s land a place where people
killed each other
fought with each other I lived that word
unfortunately the solidaire project took
into consideration profit and not
collective memory and identity downtown
was bulldozed its buildings were
dynamite
this is really being dynamited because
it was structurally viable but they
didn’t want it because it they wanted an
open access to the sea that would bring
much more money to the towers that will
be built around martyrs square but
Marty Square was flattened totally this
was Marty square in 1994 when I saw it I
was shocked there was no reference as an
architect I couldn’t know where am I
where is Marty square there was nothing
left of it except the Marty statue with
its dismembered arm the only painful
reminder of that painful part of our
history that day I decided when I saw
the flattened Marty Square I decided I
should walk the Green Line I turned
around walk the Green Line the Green
Line was full of buildings like this
buildings that smelled of war still
after four years of the end of war it
smelled smelled of for the buildings
were bullet-ridden were torn squatted in
lines of laundry haphazardly over the
broken concrete slabs water trickling
from open pipes shops that are growing
out of broken concrete edges it was war
until I reached the soda Co intersection
and there I saw this beautiful yellow
building that commanded the intersection
that had yellow stone that reflected the
Mediterranean sunlight in an amazing way
that had an opening in the middle
through the colonnade and through the
central atrium you could see the blue
sky for me it was hope I’m an architect
I was amazed by the way this building
was what is this void behind the
colonnade what is it doing why is it
dividing the building so much and to me
the two corner balconies were connected
with this thin flying beam with with a
balustrade with a handrail on top
handrail for whom for the void hiding
what the division it was our community
our society
our country exactly like this divided
trying to imply unity at every occasion
until today the void was bigger than the
unity it was built in 1924 I learned
later it was named the Baraka building
it was built by Yusef FD MOS a famous
ottoman architect of sultan abdul hameed
ii a very happy building before the war
what’s amazing about it is that this
void made every building every room in
this building connected to the front
street even if you are six rooms to the
back you have a visual axis that
connects you to the front through
carefully aligned openings through the
central void and through the colonnaded
balconies so the void was a connecting
void not a disconnecting void you could
see the city as you work through the
building in so many different ways an
amazing avant-garde architectural gem of
architectural transparency and visual
connectivity that until today is
considered a masterpiece the building
lived the heydays the golden days the
happy days of Beirut the Baraka lived in
it happily until 1975 this building that
was designed with avoid disconnecting it
and dividing it into two was destined to
become on the Green Line that divided
the city into two the genius of the
architect that created visual axis to
connect people to the city was abused by
the snipers and the fighters who sat
protected by the architecture in the six
seven rooms back and used the same
visual axis to kill people in the city
to disconnect the city it was on the
Green Line and this green huge ficus
tree took over the same way it’s still
the only reminder of the Green Line
today in Beirut it was supposed to be a
small tree that decorates the sidewalk
to be pruned every every few months so
that it still becomes this little tree
that you see on the side
it took over covered the whole building
it actually healed the building the way
people when people left the building the
tree took over in the building
22 killing locations were installed the
fighters did their own war architecture
inside the architecture of the building
they built walls that are 20 at least
two meters deep
they have surfaced concrete walls
layered sandbags with cement on them and
then they place their wooden killing
boxes at appropriate carefully aligned
angles and Heights so that they command
the intersection and no one can pass
without being killed from one of these
22 locations these traces of the wall
these are not an installation art
installation these were made by the war
by the actors of war and they feel when
you go in you feel it’s an art
installation but no it’s a place where
that happened where lives were changed
from this building people killed from
this building people were killed from
this building lives were changed from
this building the city was changed this
building should stay as a museum of
memory of the city
[Applause]
when I stood first for the first time
behind this square hole where bullets
were shot I immediately remembered the
world because I lived every minute of it
I was in Beirut and never left I
remember it as a child when I crawled
under the our dining table because I
thought when the books bombs were
falling the thick dining table of food
would really protect me I would dragged
my mother down with me sit with me
because I’m protecting you
I’m protecting my mother with a wooden
dining table but then I remember her
voice as the bombs kept falling and the
deafening sound of them was frightening
me and I was crying they do not cry if
you hear it it will not kill you because
it had just passed how can a child
reckon with these notions but then I
would waste the time past the time
looking at her eyes in the dark no
electricity under the table are they
green or blue I knew they were colored
but I thought if she leaves if something
happens to her I want to know I have to
know if I remembered all this just
because I stood there I was sure today I
am sure a girl in Syria or in Yemen or
in was in Bosnia or in Afghanistan or
even in Vietnam must have had the same
feelings because war is the same lost is
the same fear is the same all over the
world so this is not a museum of memory
just for me
it’s a museum of memory for everybody
for the world
the square opening through which the
bullet path
was now the only source of light but it
was also a painful reminder the light
moves slowly enters back from the bullet
hole where opening and that painful
history after the war when I entered in
1994 I discovered the architecture than
the world and then they I went to the
first floor East apartment and there was
the first name I were I rent a dr. Najib
Somali jirafa to blast nan dr. Najib
Somali Sharia dontist
I entered that door and when I entered I
didn’t know that this will be the story
of my life for the next 24 years on the
floor when I entered my foot sank into a
thick layer of documents clothes
newspapers visiting cards photographs
everything you had in your life
falling on top of each other people took
the sofas the things you they could sell
they’re not interested in documents
they’re not interested in old clothes
they were all there it was like an
archaeological dig an archaeological
site I was there he was a dentist but he
performed out of his clinic was in his
apartment so the chair was still there
in the clinic every medicine bottle he
used every document of every tooth he
had ever fixed was there he was a
meticulous documentary archivist and I
was there to collect it after him I was
there to put the pieces together to know
about the life of a person I’ve never
heard about before
just from the building I refused to ask
about him until today I refused to ask
about him because it wasn’t for me I
didn’t want to know who is no sheep
smelly I wanted to know how the building
was telling me the story how a building
can actually reconstruct a life a
forgotten life I spent since 1994 until
2008 and
they cleaned the building every Sunday
of my life
picking up documents taking people to
visit the building to lobby for its
preservation I found photographs I found
everything that his children from a
boarding school wrote him letters in the
20s he wrote love letters
he received love letters from Dola for
the Torah Pali the which in Italy during
the world war he had cocktails in his
apartment and he kept every bottle they
consumed so I have the first car Jose
the first lady’s ax the first al mother
and the 7up Dubois to her book he kept
every postcard of every actor he liked
he went to every cinema in Beirut and
kept every brochure of every film he saw
every film the reverend’s in cinemas
like majestic Royale Opera on Pier
gurantee Arthur most of these were
flattened by solid air to open up for
the new fresh plan and to kill the
identity of the city the other archive I
found was on the ground floor
the only other archive on the ground
floor shop was photo Mario photo Mario
was a shop that was closed by a rusty
metal metal shutter and nobody could
enter I forced myself in and then on the
floor under the debris I found more than
8,000 negatives
not one single photograph only negatives
the negatives are of portraits of people
who came to the studio before the war
and took their photographs men women
children
girls boys family portraits they were
all looking at me with white eyes
because the negative that reverses
things and those were like looking at me
a thing do you know our story do you
want to know more stories about us and I
didn’t know what to do recently I
decided to be courageous enough and to
put 80 of these I developed 80 of these
negatives with the support of a far
and the technical help of the Arab image
foundation we cleaned the negatives and
we saw the people 80 of these negatives
are now displayed in the building and it
will be a permanent display and always
updating with more and more negatives to
get more and more stories if you pass by
today on the street in the vitreous of
the shops you can see those faces
looking now at you with the realize 9 of
these people have come forward and said
this is us
they are 46 years older this is a photo
of a family four who went to the studio
to take their Palm Sunday photograph
holding their candles I didn’t know that
I will meet Claude and Joslyn shakal who
are the two younger girls in this main
in this photograph they told us stories
beautiful stories not about them only
about the city about how they used to
leave their house on mono street and go
climb up the stairs in photo Mario and
be forced every Palm Sunday to take a
photograph in 1997 after three years of
me knowing this building taking all my
friends all the people I ever knew to
visit my little secret I was passing by
at around 6:30 in the evening I look at
the building which was always my my like
my little baby and I saw something had
changed I stopped the car looked again
the handrails were not there the
balconies had no handrails I walked into
the building I walked into the back yard
and I saw that every aluminum of every
every metal frame every piece of wood
every piece of stone every Art Deco
colored tile was dismantled and there
was a demolition permit that said the
building is due to demolition I went
crazy because it was I felt immediately
that I had a baby and they were taking
it away from me I ran every person who
had ever visited the building with me I
love it with activists I love it with
people I went to the Mojave I went to
the municipality I went to the Minister
of Culture I went to every TV that
accepted to interview me to
every news agency local international to
every newspaper I did everything I could
for years I did tours I did exhibition I
printed postcards I printed posters I
went all over the city because for me
this was Beirut encapsulated in a
building and it cannot go there but the
collective memory that this building had
was too precious to be sold for a few
million to build just a building it took
me six years to convince the
municipality to expropriate the building
five years to convince them that it
becomes a museum of memory and to keep
the traces of the war together with a
municipality of Paris at the technical
supporter and the very nice scientific
committee of volunteers who loved the
project and supported me another six
years to actually renovate the building
architectural II and today we stand in
front of Beit Beirut it’s not yet the
museum I dream of today I am 50 years
old I have one son eight years old
called Dion and one daughter 24 years
old called the barricade building I will
not stop until this building becomes the
Museum of MIDI for the city a museum of
memory opened not only for exhibition
open as a museum with a curatorial
policy with a vision opened for the
people to share their stories of the
past to share their dreams of the future
to say to share with me their stories
and with you and with every single
person who lives in this country so that
the country has a memory against the
greed and against the amnesia that is
sweeping our city this will be a
reminder that if you if you preserve
your memory you create a generation that
will preserve their city for the future
we have also to preserve the memory of
the war so that we never ever fall into
its trap again [Applause]
that lived 15 years of war and twenty
eight years of post-war amnesia
how can violence be remembered in order
to it being forgotten eventually how can
we remember violence so that we never
fall into its trap again I was seven
years old when the Civil War broke in
Lebanon I had no memories of birth
square but my parents told me lots of
stories about cinema Rivoli Roxy Rialto
the parody Anna the automatic even the
tramway
the police station and of course
America’s red-light district but I knew
nothing about it
in 1990 the war ended or so they said I
had graduated that year from the
American University of Beirut as an
architect architects dream of building
the city we dreamt of building our
downtown but then the solid L project
came the real estate company took over
we were left out the middle of Beirut
during the war was were square was a
fighting arena it was the beginning of
the Green Line that divided the city
into East and West all along Damascus
Road all into the National Museum and
beyond it was a green line literally
green because the trees grew in the
asphalt the trees grew where life went
away when human life is absent nature
takes over
this was Damascus Road in 1990 right
after the war it was a reminder of a
no-man’s land a place where people
killed each other
fought with each other I lived that word
unfortunately the solidaire project took
into consideration profit and not
collective memory and identity downtown
was bulldozed its buildings were
dynamite
this is really being dynamited because
it was structurally viable but they
didn’t want it because it they wanted an
open access to the sea that would bring
much more money to the towers that will
be built around martyrs square but
Marty Square was flattened totally this
was Marty square in 1994 when I saw it I
was shocked there was no reference as an
architect I couldn’t know where am I
where is Marty square there was nothing
left of it except the Marty statue with
its dismembered arm the only painful
reminder of that painful part of our
history that day I decided when I saw
the flattened Marty Square I decided I
should walk the Green Line I turned
around walk the Green Line the Green
Line was full of buildings like this
buildings that smelled of war still
after four years of the end of war it
smelled smelled of for the buildings
were bullet-ridden were torn squatted in
lines of laundry haphazardly over the
broken concrete slabs water trickling
from open pipes shops that are growing
out of broken concrete edges it was war
until I reached the soda Co intersection
and there I saw this beautiful yellow
building that commanded the intersection
that had yellow stone that reflected the
Mediterranean sunlight in an amazing way
that had an opening in the middle
through the colonnade and through the
central atrium you could see the blue
sky for me it was hope I’m an architect
I was amazed by the way this building
was what is this void behind the
colonnade what is it doing why is it
dividing the building so much and to me
the two corner balconies were connected
with this thin flying beam with with a
balustrade with a handrail on top
handrail for whom for the void hiding
what the division it was our community
our society
our country exactly like this divided
trying to imply unity at every occasion
until today the void was bigger than the
unity it was built in 1924 I learned
later it was named the Baraka building
it was built by Yusef FD MOS a famous
ottoman architect of sultan abdul hameed
ii a very happy building before the war
what’s amazing about it is that this
void made every building every room in
this building connected to the front
street even if you are six rooms to the
back you have a visual axis that
connects you to the front through
carefully aligned openings through the
central void and through the colonnaded
balconies so the void was a connecting
void not a disconnecting void you could
see the city as you work through the
building in so many different ways an
amazing avant-garde architectural gem of
architectural transparency and visual
connectivity that until today is
considered a masterpiece the building
lived the heydays the golden days the
happy days of Beirut the Baraka lived in
it happily until 1975 this building that
was designed with avoid disconnecting it
and dividing it into two was destined to
become on the Green Line that divided
the city into two the genius of the
architect that created visual axis to
connect people to the city was abused by
the snipers and the fighters who sat
protected by the architecture in the six
seven rooms back and used the same
visual axis to kill people in the city
to disconnect the city it was on the
Green Line and this green huge ficus
tree took over the same way it’s still
the only reminder of the Green Line
today in Beirut it was supposed to be a
small tree that decorates the sidewalk
to be pruned every every few months so
that it still becomes this little tree
that you see on the side
it took over covered the whole building
it actually healed the building the way
people when people left the building the
tree took over in the building
22 killing locations were installed the
fighters did their own war architecture
inside the architecture of the building
they built walls that are 20 at least
two meters deep
they have surfaced concrete walls
layered sandbags with cement on them and
then they place their wooden killing
boxes at appropriate carefully aligned
angles and Heights so that they command
the intersection and no one can pass
without being killed from one of these
22 locations these traces of the wall
these are not an installation art
installation these were made by the war
by the actors of war and they feel when
you go in you feel it’s an art
installation but no it’s a place where
that happened where lives were changed
from this building people killed from
this building people were killed from
this building lives were changed from
this building the city was changed this
building should stay as a museum of
memory of the city
[Applause]
when I stood first for the first time
behind this square hole where bullets
were shot I immediately remembered the
world because I lived every minute of it
I was in Beirut and never left I
remember it as a child when I crawled
under the our dining table because I
thought when the books bombs were
falling the thick dining table of food
would really protect me I would dragged
my mother down with me sit with me
because I’m protecting you
I’m protecting my mother with a wooden
dining table but then I remember her
voice as the bombs kept falling and the
deafening sound of them was frightening
me and I was crying they do not cry if
you hear it it will not kill you because
it had just passed how can a child
reckon with these notions but then I
would waste the time past the time
looking at her eyes in the dark no
electricity under the table are they
green or blue I knew they were colored
but I thought if she leaves if something
happens to her I want to know I have to
know if I remembered all this just
because I stood there I was sure today I
am sure a girl in Syria or in Yemen or
in was in Bosnia or in Afghanistan or
even in Vietnam must have had the same
feelings because war is the same lost is
the same fear is the same all over the
world so this is not a museum of memory
just for me
it’s a museum of memory for everybody
for the world
the square opening through which the
bullet path
was now the only source of light but it
was also a painful reminder the light
moves slowly enters back from the bullet
hole where opening and that painful
history after the war when I entered in
1994 I discovered the architecture than
the world and then they I went to the
first floor East apartment and there was
the first name I were I rent a dr. Najib
Somali jirafa to blast nan dr. Najib
Somali Sharia dontist
I entered that door and when I entered I
didn’t know that this will be the story
of my life for the next 24 years on the
floor when I entered my foot sank into a
thick layer of documents clothes
newspapers visiting cards photographs
everything you had in your life
falling on top of each other people took
the sofas the things you they could sell
they’re not interested in documents
they’re not interested in old clothes
they were all there it was like an
archaeological dig an archaeological
site I was there he was a dentist but he
performed out of his clinic was in his
apartment so the chair was still there
in the clinic every medicine bottle he
used every document of every tooth he
had ever fixed was there he was a
meticulous documentary archivist and I
was there to collect it after him I was
there to put the pieces together to know
about the life of a person I’ve never
heard about before
just from the building I refused to ask
about him until today I refused to ask
about him because it wasn’t for me I
didn’t want to know who is no sheep
smelly I wanted to know how the building
was telling me the story how a building
can actually reconstruct a life a
forgotten life I spent since 1994 until
2008 and
they cleaned the building every Sunday
of my life
picking up documents taking people to
visit the building to lobby for its
preservation I found photographs I found
everything that his children from a
boarding school wrote him letters in the
20s he wrote love letters
he received love letters from Dola for
the Torah Pali the which in Italy during
the world war he had cocktails in his
apartment and he kept every bottle they
consumed so I have the first car Jose
the first lady’s ax the first al mother
and the 7up Dubois to her book he kept
every postcard of every actor he liked
he went to every cinema in Beirut and
kept every brochure of every film he saw
every film the reverend’s in cinemas
like majestic Royale Opera on Pier
gurantee Arthur most of these were
flattened by solid air to open up for
the new fresh plan and to kill the
identity of the city the other archive I
found was on the ground floor
the only other archive on the ground
floor shop was photo Mario photo Mario
was a shop that was closed by a rusty
metal metal shutter and nobody could
enter I forced myself in and then on the
floor under the debris I found more than
8,000 negatives
not one single photograph only negatives
the negatives are of portraits of people
who came to the studio before the war
and took their photographs men women
children
girls boys family portraits they were
all looking at me with white eyes
because the negative that reverses
things and those were like looking at me
a thing do you know our story do you
want to know more stories about us and I
didn’t know what to do recently I
decided to be courageous enough and to
put 80 of these I developed 80 of these
negatives with the support of a far
and the technical help of the Arab image
foundation we cleaned the negatives and
we saw the people 80 of these negatives
are now displayed in the building and it
will be a permanent display and always
updating with more and more negatives to
get more and more stories if you pass by
today on the street in the vitreous of
the shops you can see those faces
looking now at you with the realize 9 of
these people have come forward and said
this is us
they are 46 years older this is a photo
of a family four who went to the studio
to take their Palm Sunday photograph
holding their candles I didn’t know that
I will meet Claude and Joslyn shakal who
are the two younger girls in this main
in this photograph they told us stories
beautiful stories not about them only
about the city about how they used to
leave their house on mono street and go
climb up the stairs in photo Mario and
be forced every Palm Sunday to take a
photograph in 1997 after three years of
me knowing this building taking all my
friends all the people I ever knew to
visit my little secret I was passing by
at around 6:30 in the evening I look at
the building which was always my my like
my little baby and I saw something had
changed I stopped the car looked again
the handrails were not there the
balconies had no handrails I walked into
the building I walked into the back yard
and I saw that every aluminum of every
every metal frame every piece of wood
every piece of stone every Art Deco
colored tile was dismantled and there
was a demolition permit that said the
building is due to demolition I went
crazy because it was I felt immediately
that I had a baby and they were taking
it away from me I ran every person who
had ever visited the building with me I
love it with activists I love it with
people I went to the Mojave I went to
the municipality I went to the Minister
of Culture I went to every TV that
accepted to interview me to
every news agency local international to
every newspaper I did everything I could
for years I did tours I did exhibition I
printed postcards I printed posters I
went all over the city because for me
this was Beirut encapsulated in a
building and it cannot go there but the
collective memory that this building had
was too precious to be sold for a few
million to build just a building it took
me six years to convince the
municipality to expropriate the building
five years to convince them that it
becomes a museum of memory and to keep
the traces of the war together with a
municipality of Paris at the technical
supporter and the very nice scientific
committee of volunteers who loved the
project and supported me another six
years to actually renovate the building
architectural II and today we stand in
front of Beit Beirut it’s not yet the
museum I dream of today I am 50 years
old I have one son eight years old
called Dion and one daughter 24 years
old called the barricade building I will
not stop until this building becomes the
Museum of MIDI for the city a museum of
memory opened not only for exhibition
open as a museum with a curatorial
policy with a vision opened for the
people to share their stories of the
past to share their dreams of the future
to say to share with me their stories
and with you and with every single
person who lives in this country so that
the country has a memory against the
greed and against the amnesia that is
sweeping our city this will be a
reminder that if you if you preserve
your memory you create a generation that
will preserve their city for the future
we have also to preserve the memory of
the war so that we never ever fall into
its trap again [Applause]
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