Thesis Highlights

"Designing Identity"

Lauren McGrath, 2022

"Designing Identity: Memorialization of Collective Memory & Trauma in Beirut, Lebanon"

After the massive explosion on August 4th, 2020, the port of Beirut, Lebanon was a no man’s land and the city laid in ruin. What had once been the lifeblood of the city now acted as a site of trauma drenched in the public’s anger and devastation. Reconciliation of the port within the identity of Beirut is crucial for establishing any further connection of the public to the port. There lies both a physical and emotional barrier between the port and the public best traversed through the exploration of identity in time and place. At the intersection of time and place resides memorial architecture—memory captured in time and given form. 

Beirut faces a crisis of identity at the destruction of the port which memorial architecture can re-establish and preserve by accessing collective and individual memory and emotion to create urban space dedicated to the narrative of Beirut. Drawing axes from important historical sites around the city, the memorial is a journey across the identity of Beirut and the port itself, uncovering Beirut’s history of ruin and re-growth. Time enfolds itself into the memorial’s path through the focused narratives along the memorial site creating a walkable time-line experienced through the manipulation of the ground. The memorial starts with the city and crosses time and space to ultimately project back to its source: a resilient city always looking towards future horizons. 

WORK