Unnamed modernisms : national ideologies and historical imaginaries in Beirut's urban architecture

Since the commencement of post-war reconstruction in 1991, Beirut has been radically transformed through a series of large development projects that seek to reconcile the war induced fragmentation of both city and national identity whilst reclaiming its "historic" position as one of a global network of cities. These changes are grounded in a series of historiographic approaches to memory, architecture, and urbanism. This dissertation argues that a critical approach to the city in this context has to come to terms with the omissions that constitute its history and the ambiguities of its multiple political locations. It contends that these ambiguities are grounded in two specific events unleashed by the historic transition of Beirut from a thriving cosmopolitan port city and capital of an Ottoman province carrying its own name and spanning over a vast territory into the capital of a smaller new nation state under French mandate (1888-1943). The first is the ambivalence that characterized the projection and formation of national identity under mandate (as opposed to colonial) rule and the second is the superimposition of a capital city on the site of a cosmopolitan port city during this same period.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Architecture.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2005

Author dc:creator

• Yahya, Maha

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Mark Jarzombek and Philip Khoury.

• Architecture.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/33453
• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Identifier URI

http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/33453

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/33453