Lebanon

The project explores the preconditions for architecture through assessing its bedrock: fragility, scarcity of resources, and commodification. A century past the Great Famine that had depopulated Mount Lebanon, the whole country seems to be for sale, the whole country is gradually being covered by the homogeneous fabric of the real estate economy that digests it and levels it. The actual territory becomes no more than an abstract ‘unbuilt’ space, a continuum to be built. Giving land back its meaning seems to be a prerequisite for building it. Accordingly, the territory has to be rendered visible, and the tangible/sensitive reality needs to be brought back to the centre whereby it becomes possible to identify, inventory, list, and shed light on the places that remain and the conditions for their preservation. The exhibition uses relief map, landscape photography, and video surveillance. The setting is a watershed so as to bring the resources back to the focus of attention.