Voices of Beirut, drawing a new center from the disaster

Project idea

The new Beirut’s port will be the new attractive and dynamic area of the city. It will welcome different districts with new functions responding to the needs of the population. These ones will be connected with the city. In addition, a memorial area will be created in the location of the ruins of the silo building visitors to to remember the disaster.

Project description

What was an industrial port before will welcome new functions like residential buildings, open air mall, administrative and cultural buildings. To maintain the industrial economic function of the port of Beirut, the container terminal, empty storage zone and the cargo zone have been rebuilt just as the passenger terminal area. They are all connected by a main road working like a spinal collar. perpendicularly to this road a huge opening between the building is creating a through-view towards the memorial and also a connection towards it through the green spaces.
The main district of the all project will be the memorial area with the silo which will be cleaned, secured and transformed into a memorial. this one will be surrounded by a gallery, a library and a bridge to reconnect the two parts of the coast separated by a hole during the explosion.

Technical information

The monolith silo has been cleaned and we can find on the remaining walls the names of the deceased. The reflective floor acts as a mirror depending on the light and the moment of the day. Some wind chimes have been installed on the prints of the silo’s part that were destroyed by the explosion. It acts like a sound installation that will take advantage of the wind on the coast to produce some subtle and enveloping sounds.

The bridge is located where the explosion took place, to make a new relation between the land and the water, without forgetting what happened. Its circle shape was designed to remind in a spiritual way the accident. In the middle of the circle, visitors can see a sculpture related to the history of the place. Its design has two pieces, one of them tries to resemble the explosion and the other one wraps around it as a symbol of union for the city.

The library is separated in two parts, creating an opening to the silo memorial and the rest of the city. The building is made of different curved shapes, modules of different sizes and orientations depending on the floor, sometimes revealing parts of the silo memorial. Inside, an open reading area is located around a module that works like a spinal collar to distribute each floor.The library acts like a landmark on the new port, lighting during the night. During the day, it reveals the silo with transparency of the large opening combined with glass-tubes to remember the shapes of the silo.

A long rectangular gallery is also part of the memorial area. It has different orientations to various buildings such as the silot memorial or the library. People can have a look on the silo memorial while they learn about the tragic history of the port