BEIRUT: A CITY PALIMPSEST Architecture and Urban Mediterranean Cultures

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Faculty of Fine Arts and Architecture, Lebanese University

Abstract

Reading and mapping the urban fabric through the permanence
of its traces isa very important fact that drives us to interpret the
complexity of a “Locus”
1
and guides us to decode the cityscape
in relation to the metamorphosis of its urban components.
This article underlines the complex nature of the historical
construction process of Beirut city, and points out the
characters of its transformation by examining its structure 
through the historical process of its formation: polymorphic
continuity in its multiple fractures caused by the superimposition
ofdifferent architectural and urban cultures.
The palimpsest and the urban continuum “legible” in the 
metamorphosis of Beirut city are examined in this article as
“tools” in order to individualize, through the permanence and
persistence of the old urban traces, the geometric alignments and
the positioning of monuments; a sort of hidden urban 
correlations among the various urban components that
characterize the city as a phenomenon. 

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