Morphogenesis of the Beirut Green-Line theoretical approaches between architecture and geography

Abstract

The 1975-1991 war in Lebanon turned identities into territories. The driving force of this process was an urge to ensure identity by ascribing it to geographical place. The consequence was a profound destabilization of the fragile multicultural coexistence and a 'geography of fear'. The process dismantled the underlying structures of the society. The war ran out of hand and became a fight between self made war-lords and street gangs. Instead of an agglomeration of culturally homogenuous safe-havens, the most dominant characteristic of Beirut's urban geography became the Green-Line area. This article on the nature of Green-Line architecture conveys echos of three years of work at the American University of Beirut. They form a set of intuitions and hypotheses based upon three complementary morphodynamic approaches: the theory of evolutionary systems as developed in the studies of artificial intelligence and artificial life; some concepts from catastrophe theory and dynamic semiotics; and the theory of the morphogenesis of human settlement.