South Beirut (Jnah, Bir Hassan) Renovation / Elissar Project

[Kappa21]

The following posts were moved to this new thread. Please use this thread to disucss all issues regarding the southern districts of Beirut (near the Airport).

- Beiruti




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Is the Airport outside of the city?
How are the houses near it? new?

[Hassoun]

It was Outside of the City,but now it's in the Southern suburb.
Houses around it are both old and new

[Jayme]

there not meant to be there at all

[Kappa21]

isnt s. beirut kinda...sketchy?

[Hassoun]

The Southern suburb 'Most of it' Was built during the civil War as Illegal buildings.

[Jayme]

Originally Posted by Kappa21

isnt s. beirut kinda...sketchy?

what dose that mean...? Cheap looking

[Kappa21]

You know.....a little nasrallah...refugee camps, AK 47's....Burj Arab if im not mistaken

[LeB-iT]

Originally Posted by Kappa21

You know.....a little nasrallah...refugee camps, AK 47's....Burj Arab if im not mistaken

this is Beirut int'l's location in the city...can anyone point what other areas are illegaly built?

[kheireddine]

Half of the Southern Suburb is illegally built. Especially on the old Airport road around the Bourj el Barajneh camp.

[LeB.Fr]

Originally Posted by LeB-iT

this is Beirut int'l's location in the city...can anyone point what other areas are illegaly built?

Is it true that Rafic Hariri wanted to destroy all this area and rebuild it in the same way that the down town?It would be great because all of this area is facing the sea

[Hassoun]

ALLAH yer7amo,.he really wanted to make it the Most beautiful city on the Med. sea

[LeB.Fr]

I mean just look at this area!!!If it we connect if to ramlet el bayda beach, we could make it the largest sandy beach in Lebanon!!!
It's the same with Nahral Bared camp, it's near the sea.Instead of rebuilding a camp, they could build a marina or something like that!!!

[Hassoun]

Originally Posted by beirut guy

I mean just look at this area!!!If it we connect if to ramlet el bayda beach, we could make it the largest sandy beach in Lebanon!!!

I always thought about it this way.all the buildings in that area must be demolished and let's make it the longest sandy beach in Lebanon.it's gonna attract so many tourists,especially that it's so close to the Airport.

[Jayme]

those buildings behind LU annoy me

[kheireddine]

Those building are in the southern suburb. Hopefully, the LU will bring prosperity to the area.

[john2890]

"Is it true that Rafic Hariri wanted to destroy all this area and rebuild it in the same way that the down town?It would be great because all of this area is facing the sea"

do you have any idea how much that would cost to have been completed? i realy doubt it. and what would he have done with the thousands of refugee's or whoever the heck lives there? and if they really did plan to rebuild the whole place downtown-style, they most probably would have used cheap-ass materials, which would make the place look like disney-land. or dubai. same thing.

IF any plans will be made to make this place into a touristic area, the best thing is to give it an AUTHENTIC cheap quick-fix using what's already there and what they have. and to be honest, i personally believe that if that place is "fixed" it would look very nice, specialy because of its narrow winding streets and interconected houses. it has alot of character.
1- put red roofs on all the buildings
2- french windows
3- white plastered exterior walls.
4- cobbled streets.
5- lots of gemayze-style balconies: french-style cast iron balconies etc...
6- fountains/squares/statues ...they can make the place look like venice or Nice while still retaining the foundations and authenticity.
etc...

if done tastefully the place good/will look like this:

http://www.alpix.com/nice/pictures/p...hateau_1_m.jpg
http://images.google.ie/imgres?imgur...%3Den%26sa%3DG
http://www.mmoore.com/images/italy/v...icestreet4.jpg
http://www.hickerphoto.com/data/medi...nice_12147.jpg
http://www.beyond.fr/picsvill2/nice45B.jpg
http://www.mathies.com/europe/nice1.jpg

but then again, one has to consider how the people living there will react. even though they're living there illegaly, hezbollah most probably will support them and not allow the government to do anything, or at least cause alot of trouble.
next thing to consider is, the fact that the place is predominantly muslim. will they be willing to accept tourists in bikinis etc...in their town/slum? AND will you realy want the tourists to go to such places (even though they have been renovated), the initial anti-western people are still gonna be there.

anyway..my rant is over. tell me what u guys think.

[kheireddine]

Ultimately, those people need to be moved from there as it is not their land. Being a prime location, a solution might be found once Hezbollah agrees on it, or once the Hezb is weakened.

[AmeriLEB]

Kheireddine can tell you and maybe post pictures...that the area was a very trendy spot in the 50's and 60's...it had resorts liek the san Michel and San Simone.

The current makeup poses a significant danger...the homes are literally sandwiched between two runways..A) if a plane goes dwn or makes an Emergency landing they may be killed and B) Terrorists may use this area to cause human loss on a big scale....This was(is) major issue for the airport when it was rebuilt..they built tunnels etc..It continues to be a major concern and this particular section is priorty for removal

[ainmreisiot]

Originally Posted by john2890

"Is it true that Rafic Hariri wanted to destroy all this area and rebuild it in the same way that the down town?It would be great because all of this area is facing the sea"

do you have any idea how much that would cost to have been completed? i realy doubt it. and what would he have done with the thousands of refugee's or whoever the heck lives there? and if they really did plan to rebuild the whole place downtown-style, they most probably would have used cheap-ass materials, which would make the place look like disney-land. or dubai. same thing.

IF any plans will be made to make this place into a touristic area, the best thing is to give it an AUTHENTIC cheap quick-fix using what's already there and what they have. and to be honest, i personally believe that if that place is "fixed" it would look very nice, specialy because of its narrow winding streets and interconected houses. it has alot of character.
1- put red roofs on all the buildings
2- french windows
3- white plastered exterior walls.
4- cobbled streets.
5- lots of gemayze-style balconies: french-style cast iron balconies etc...
6- fountains/squares/statues ...they can make the place look like venice or Nice while still retaining the foundations and authenticity.
etc...

if done tastefully the place good/will look like this:

http://www.alpix.com/nice/pictures/p...hateau_1_m.jpg
http://images.google.ie/imgres?imgur...%3Den%26sa%3DG
http://www.mmoore.com/images/italy/v...icestreet4.jpg
http://www.hickerphoto.com/data/medi...nice_12147.jpg
http://www.beyond.fr/picsvill2/nice45B.jpg
http://www.mathies.com/europe/nice1.jpg

but then again, one has to consider how the people living there will react. even though they're living there illegaly, hezbollah most probably will support them and not allow the government to do anything, or at least cause alot of trouble.
next thing to consider is, the fact that the place is predominantly muslim. will they be willing to accept tourists in bikinis etc...in their town/slum? AND will you realy want the tourists to go to such places (even though they have been renovated), the initial anti-western people are still gonna be there.

anyway..my rant is over. tell me what u guys think.

I think that, as you pointed out, the issue is moot for now, as a government which doesn't want to risk moving a few protesters off of land slated for development only meters away from its own seat is unlikely to try to push for the expropriation of land in hezbollah's stronghold...

But that aside, a good book which among other things touches on the plans and the social issues of companies like Linord, Elyssar, and Solidere is Projecting Beirut: Episodes in the Construction and Reconstruction of a Modern City by Peter G. Rowe (Editor), Hashim Sarkis (Editor) . (It also has good essays on Lebanon's modernist heritage, and on urban planning efforts over the years.) Can you really force a plan on people rather than engaging them? They are squatters, but they were allowed to squat, even before the war, both to their detriment and to that of the legal owners. They were victims of fighting and of social disruption, and have now been settled there for a long time. (Ironically, their argument has points in common with that of our "new" neighbors across one of our borders...)

So I think your idea is actually more suited to reality. The people in the southern suburb are there to stay, and it's unlikely either Hezbollah or Amal are going to let the government push forward any large-scale redevelopment .

But to address the earlier part of your post, Elyssar's plan was to relocate people within the same general area, while freeing up the coast for tourist development. It wouldn't necessarily have been a project like the center, with historicist tendencies, and there was no pretense of making the low cost redevelopment areas attractive enough to become tourist draws like the center.

I've seen sketches here and there of the building type originally proposed for the new neighborhood for the displaced - I think Dar-al-Handassah had the brief. The original designs were of 5-6 storey stand-alone buildings, looking something like a 1960's urban renewal project in the US. I didn't see much of a plan for a neighborhood, more like a sterile, ordered wasteland-in-the-making, fit into spaces between highways...


The renderings from the Elyssar site (http://www.elyssar.com/overview.html ) look a little better than what I saw a few years back. I've tried to post them below. Apologies if they have been posted elsewhere.

Elyssar Overview



Elyssar Overview 2


Elyssar Land Use plan


Elyssar Maramel neighborhood


Elyssar Sabra neighborhood


Anyway, again, as you'd pointed out, all of this is moot. This neighborhood will develop, or not, according to what the party that controls it decides, and that party will be hezbollah as long as it has more guns and money than everyone else.

[john2890]

yea for now nothing's goin to happen. not untill the political issues are solved. i dont particularly think hezbollah are that much interested in making their town a touristic place, as far as i understand, they are quite anti-western.
but if ever such plans ever do surface (hopefuly). yea i'd say ouzai would make a rather nice touristic area. i saw the plans you uploaded...i'm not that particularly impressed to be honest. by removing everything there is, means that the whole identity of the place is gone. they're trying to make the area look modern and alot like dubai.
here's another good pic i found:

http://www.seewald.com/images/France...eille_197k.jpg

look at the buildings in that pic ^ and try to find the resemblance between it and the buildings in ouzai. pretty much the same. only fancier.

what do you guys think personaly? simply out of interest. new and modern or old and full of character?
hmmm...anyway for now though id say we wait and see what'll happen with hezbollah.
i've been wanting to discuss this topic for ages now, i'm realy glad someone brought it up.