Tag Archives: Beirut

Beirut Featured on CNN: Beirutopia – A Garden City?

How the rooftops would look like

One of the things I dislike the most about Beirut is the drastic lack of green spaces and parks. In fact, we tend to see parks as a waste of space, vying to destroy them to build new high-rises in their place. Yes, I think the destruction of the Sursok gardens is a Beiruti disaster.

However, a new project being planned for Beirut has caught the attention of CNN and they decided to talk about it. Beirutopia: Could Lebanon’s capital become a garden city? 

Architect Wissam Melki has a plan for Beirut – and it’s to turn the roofs of the city’s dense buildings into gardens, as a way to help ameliorate the poor air quality, limit the inland heat affect and make the quality of life in the city better. The plan doesn’t involve complex drainage systems, simply small to medium-size trees in large pots, all over our roofs.

Beirut's current "green" situation

How Beirut would look like after the project

The overall aim is to have 60,000 trees planted around Beirut, which would create a canopy above the city to help it cool down in the scorching summer and to decrease the levels of CO2. And get this, the cost for the project is very little: about  $3.5 – 4 million. That’s way less than any of the new high-rises being built in Beirut and it would span the whole city.
Melki says, however, that even if the government funds the project, the residents of the city need to feel involved. In a country like Lebanon where “green” is so low on the list of priorities, are we, as Lebanese, willing to care for the trees on our rooftops?
One of the main problems I see facing this is the status of Beirut’s buildings. Most of them are old, with shabby structure. Could they support the extra weight of the trees?
Regardless, I, for one, support such a project. Beirut is in dire need of some green – the city is dying from pollution and it’s high time we do something about it. Watering a tree every few days wouldn’t put a dent in our lifestyle, now would it?
It also requires less involvment from us than fighting for the city’s heritage. Either way, let’s honor our capital and get behind this much-needed project. Even CNN thinks it’s interesting enough.
The gardens look great and would make Beirut an even more gorgeous city than it is today. “Just imagine: The world’s first rooftop garden city,” Melki said. I can imagine it. Can you?

Red Hot Chili Peppers Coming to Lebanon for Concert on September 6th

Mix FM just announced that rock band Red Hot Chilly Peppers will be coming to Lebanon for a concert on September 6th at Beirut’s new Waterfront.

Tickets will be available from Wednesday April 11th, starting 60$ at Virgin Megastores. I’m pretty sure they’ll run out fast so if you’re a fan of the band, I suggest you get on it quickly.

Red Hot Chilly Peppers will perform their greatest hits at the concert, such as “Californication, Scar Tissue, Give It Away, By The Way, Otherside, Dani California” as well as their new hits like: “Adventures of Raindance Maggie, Monarchy Of Roses and Look Around” – all part of their I’m With You World Tour.

Will you be going?

 

13 Awesome Ads!

A friend recently shared these ads with me and I thought they were awesome.

Tilt the screen forward

Lebanon’s Litani River Turns White

First we had the Beirut River turning red.

Now it’s the Litani’s time to turn white. It seems Lebanese rivers are drawing Lebanon’s flag. We still need one to turn green and it’s a go. I wonder, what substances can we pour into our water to achieve that color?

While the incident with the Litani did not affect the whole river, the cause has been said to be either the flow of calcified water into the river or some nearby factory throwing in its waste.

Either way, it’s highly likely that we’ll never know what caused this. One thing is certain – Lebanon now has another reason, apart from our snowy mountains, for its name.

Save Beirut’s Heritage: The Roman Hippodrome To Be Demolished

Discovered in 1988, the Roman Hippodrome in Beirut is situated in Wadi Abou Jmil, next to the newly renovated Jewish Synagogue in Downtown Beirut. This monument, dating back for thousands of years, now risks to be destroyed.

The hippodrome is considered, along with the Roman Road and Baths, as one of the most important remaining relics of the Byzantine and Roman era. It spreads over a total area of 3500 m2.

Requests for construction projects in the hippodrome’s location have been ongoing since the monument’s discovery  but were constantly refused by former ministers of culture of which we name Tarek Metri, Tamam Salam and Salim Warde. In fact, Tamam Salam had even issued a decree banning any work on the hippodrome’s site, effectively protecting it by law. Salim Warde did not contest the decree. Current minister of culture Gabriel Layoun authorized constructions to commence.

When it comes to ancient sites in cities that have lots of them, such as Beirut, the current adopted approach towards these sites is called a “mitigation approach” which requires that the incorporation of the monuments in modern plans does not affect those monuments in any way whatsoever. The current approval by minister Layoun does not demand such an approach to be adopted. The monument will have one of its main walls dismantled and taken out of location. Why? to build a fancy new high-rise instead. Minister Layoun sees nothing wrong with this. In fact, displacing ruins is never done unless due to some extreme circumstances. I highly believe whatever Solidere has in store for the land is considered an “extreme circumstance.”

The Roman Hippodrome in downtown Beirut is considered as one of the best preserved not only in Lebanon, but in the world. It is also the fifth to be discovered in the Middle East. In fact, a report (Arabic) by the General Director of Ruins in Lebanon, Frederick Al Husseini, spoke about the importance of the monument as one that has been talked about in various ancient books. It has also been correlated with Beirut’s infamous ancient Law School. He speaks about the various structures that are still preserved and only needing some restoration to be fully exposed. He called the monument as a highly important site for Lebanon and the world and is one of Beirut’s main facilities from the Byzantine and Roman eras, suggesting to work on preserving and making this site one of Beirut’s important cultural and touristic locations. His report dates back from 2008.

MP Michel Aoun, the head of the party of which Gabriel Layoun is part, defended his minsiter’s position by saying that: “there are a lot of discrepancies between Solidere and us. Therefore, a minister from our party cannot be subjected to Solidere. Minister Layoun found a way, which is adopted internationally, to incorporate ancient sites with newer ones… So I hope that media outlets do not discuss this issue in a way that would raise suspicion.”

With all due respect to Mr. Aoun and his minister but endangering Beirut’s culture to strip away even more of the identity that makes it Beirut is not something that should concern him or Solidere. What’s happening is a cultural crime to the entirety of the Lebanese population, one where the interests of meaningless politicians becomes irrelevant. Besides, for a party that has been anti-Solidere for years, I find it highly hypocritical that they are allowing Solidere to dismantle the Roman Hippodrome.

The conclusion is: never has a hippodrome been dismantled and displaced in any parts of the world. Beirut’s hippodrome will effectively become part of the parking of the high-rise to be built in its place. No mitigation approach will be adopted here. It is only but a diversion until people forget and plans go well underway in secrecy. But the time for us to be silent about this blatant persecution of our history cannot continue.

If there’s anything that we can do is let the issue propagate as much as we can. There shouldn’t be a Lebanese person in the 10452 km2 that remains clueless about any endangered monument for that matter. Sadly enough, this goes beyond the hippodrome. We have become so accustomed to the reality of it that we’ve become very submissive: the ancient Phoenician port is well behind us, there are constructions around the ancient Phoenician port of Tyre and the city itself risks of being removed off UNESCO’s list for Cultural Heritage Sites.

The land on which ancient monuments are built doesn’t belong to Solidere, to the Ministry of Culture or to any other contractor – no matter how much they’ve paid to buy it. It belongs to the Lebanese people in their entirety. When you realize that of the 200 sites uncovered at Solidere, those that have remained intact can be counted with the fingers of one hand, the reality becomes haunting. It’s about time we rise to our rights. Beirut’s hippodrome will not be destroyed.