Evolving Scars

In 1991, as the newly proposed plan for the rehabilitation and re-construction of the Beirut Central District was being implemented, we proposed to turn the process of demolition of war damaged buildings in the city into a collective architectural experiment. Our proposed scenario “Evolving scars” was, first of all, a political act in opposition to the adopted conventional urban planning methods. The project consists of a temporary transparent skin that is implemented around the outer periphery of a ruin and a “memory collector” that deploys itself within the perimeter of the ruin while collecting data. The intensity of collecting information is translated by the gradual demolition of the existing edifice. The “remains” of the ruin are collected and contained within the transparent peripheral membrane. The method and rate of demolition becomes a consequence of the intensity of collecting information. The process ends with the complete demolition of the ruin, the physical saturation of the transparent peripheral membrane and the saturation of the memory collector. The proposed concept did not project the city into hypothetical future, nor did it propose the erection of physical structures in the city. “Evolving Scars” was instead an attempt to translate the demolition of buildings into an ephemeral architectural act.