n-Dimensional Metaphor: the Grand Museum of Egypt

One of the most recurrent themes in the history of civilisations is the close link between their worldview – what they believe the world to be like- and their large scale architectural production. In particular, the Egyptians built gargantuan projects because they believed they were necessary to uphold and sustain their worldview. It was also their way of keeping eternal archives of their memory and knowledge, literally carved in stone, or through metaphoric and symbolic devices. Here are some of the parallels in attitude – updated for the 21st century – we have adopted for this project.
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Quantum Environments: Urban Design in the Post-Cartesian Paradigm

Introduction An Antipodal Landscape, the Need for a Synthesis The Cartesian Paradigm A Post-Cartesian Paradigm: the Quantum World View A New Conceptual Language The Society-Space-Time Quantum Continuum and the Role of the User’s Mind Implications for Urban Form A Multi-level Framework Conclusion Introduction Incomparable scientific and technological development has transformed our culture and our lifestyles […]
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Sifting Through the Chaos / A (Brief) Manual for Navigating the Streets of Beirut

For many travellers visiting a new city, the first impression is everything… yet most interesting cities hide their true character behind a facade of images and sounds that overwhelm the visitor’s senses by their sheer newness. This generally makes for a very shallow form of tourism that, although often interesting enough by itself, gives a […]
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MonoPolyPolis: Banknotes & Beirut

Money in Lebanon is perhaps the single most common denominator between the 18 or so communities that make up the Lebanese mosaic. The failure to recognise the importance of national currency as an archive of culture, is as dangerous as the systematic eradication of cultural heritage, as in the example of the Beirut Central District.
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Memory Between Amnesia and Trauma (a Proposal for Sarajevo)

This project for the Marijin Dvor district of Sarajevo proposes both to retain the characteristics of a charged site and transform the significance of those characteristics – to walk a fine line between amnesia and trauma. It suggests a neutral recognition of certain artifacts, in particular the extraordinary figure of the Marshall Tito Barracks. It […]
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Therapeutic Urbanism?

“Hornstrumpet! We shall not have succeeded in demolishing everything unless we demolish the ruins as well. But the only way I can see of doing that is to use them to put up a lot of fine, well-designed buildings.” – Père Ubu (Alfred Jarry)
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The 70-Year-Itch or the Dawn of the Quantum City

The Ancient Egyptians built gigantic tombs to bury one man at great human and economic expense, the Greeks deployed immense effort to design temples of perfect proportions yet of no real function, the Romans imposed military grids on far colonies throughout their Empire… the early catholic church separated the City of God from the City […]
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