The Excavation of Beirut: a Quest for National Identity?
Fouiller Beyrouth : une quête d'identité nationale ?
Résumé
The “city as excavation” poses a series of questions on the object itself, the city, which lead further than just piecing together archaeological material. A city such as Beirut cannot be reduced to its material dimension, nor can it be simply related to its economic functions. It is both signifiant and signifié, a coded object which its societies continuously appropriate, territorialize and reterritorialize according to numerous collective or individual stakes. Metaphorically, its invisible and deep roots can explain what happens on the surface of things. Today’s city, both in its material and symbolical reality, is also a consequence of past actions; today’s reality can be decoded once its invisible, underground foundations are exposed. Excavating the city gives sense to the present, a prerequisite, for urbanists at least, to plan its future. The “city as excavation” is thus at the centre of complex choices, all anchored in the semiosphere, and thus all ideologically motivated. Excavating the city is a deliberate decision with far-ranging consequences, not the least being nation-building strategies and economics. The text will examine how the “city as excavation”, is part and parcel of complex strategies of Lebanese nation-building while at the same time being at the core of the speculative economy of the reconstruction project of the city’s centre.
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