Conference at the CERMOC
Conference at USEK
Main report of the study commissioned by the CDR (Council for Development and Reconstruction) from a consortium including IAURIF, Dar Al Handasah and a group of Lebanese experts including the author who was in charge of the coordination of public policies and of the economy.
During its preparation, this report was at the centre of a wide debate and the European Union allocated a budget for its diffusion. It has been mentioned in the programs of two Cabinets but has not yet been formally approved.
The report can be accessed on the official site of the CDR
Introduction: Basics of the land use master plan
1. Uncontested physical features
4. The perspectives of the national physical master plan
6. The first implementation phase of the NPMPLT
Acknowledgements and Project team
The final synthesis report of the National Physical Master Plan for Lebanon relies on a large number of sectoral reports some of which have been written by the author and are available on the site:
At the request of the CDR, a document was annexed to the synthesis report in order to reassess the practice of public investment programming in the light of the NPMPL.
This document is entitled: Plan Programme (in French)
Link : on the official site of the Conuncil for Development and Reconstruction (CDR)
1986
At that time, continuing the detailed studies and the field works had become impossible because of the deterioration of the security situation and the crumbling down of the state structure.
The document was produced to summarize and to preserve the amount of work produced by several teams of urban planners, architects, engineers and economists over more than three years so as to avoid their loss and the blurring of its main orientations.
The report presents the functional programming options for the Central District in relation with the idea of “recentering and reuniting the city”, it explicitly envisages for the first time the different legal structures available for the realization of designed objective and presents a detailed quantification and programming of the first phase as well as several scenarios for the further development.
Its reading is especially relevant in the perspective of comparing its programmatic and structuring proposals with what has become “Solidere”.
In French
November 2001
The report assesses the socioeconomic situation in the concerned cities as well as their assets in terms of cultural tourism and related activities, giving special attention to the distribution of interests at stake and to the consequences of the different possible forms of intervention.
The document became the reference for the later stages of the project that is presently being implemented.
April 2002
Report written during the second phase of the Cultural Heritage Project, in association with AAA (Atelier d’Architectes Associés) for the CDR and the World Bank.
It includes the programming of the operation (that is presently being implemented) and the evaluation of its impact on the local community and economy.
Tannourine and the neighbouring villages in the highlands of Mount-Lebanon
Because of the author’s implication in both projects and following the request of the General Directorate of Urban Planning, this work was the first local study that fits within the frame of the National Physical Master Plan for Lebanon (NPMPL) and constitutes therefore a typical example.
The concerned area has been proposed within the NPMPL as one major « Regional Natural Park » in the country.
Table of contents [68,5 Ko – in arabic]
1. Physical characteristics of the site [14,8 Mo – in arabic]
2. Land and buildings use [1,4 Mo – in arabic]
3. Situation of constructions and housing units [473 Ko – in arabic]
4. Demography, residency, emigration [293 Ko – in arabic]
5. Communications, public equipments and infrastructures [113 Ko – in arabic]
6. Economic situation [126 Ko – in arabic]
7. Institutional framework and social services [84 Ko – in arabic]
8. Archaeological, cultural and natural Sites, environment [100 Ko – in arabic]
9. Conclusions and planning alternatives [14,8 Mo – in arabic]
10. Annexes [213 Ko – in arabic]
In Arabic
The word « fair » refers to a heterogeneous array of commercial-political demonstrations, none of its still living forms seeming to fit with the present situation of the city of Tripoli. The urban site inherited from the fair and the need to develop and integrate the city for which the fair project has been designed are far more important than its merchant or symbolic functionality.
Tripoli is socially and urbanly in distress. It could not overcome the war traumas. It is internally dismembered and cut from its environment. The site of the fair is being manipulated to serve as a no-man’s-land in the territorial stakes and as a support for wheeler-dealer speculations.
By revisiting the initial concept of the project and by taking profit of the potentialities of the grandiose site, it is possible to find the support for a set of major structuring equipments that the NPMPL has planned for Tripoli, while keeping the door open for a wide range of activities that Niemeyer wished to welcome under the vast tent of the fair.
In French