The Urban Environment: Mirror and Mediator of Radicalisation?

Safadi Fine Arts Building, Sheikh Zayed Hall, Beirut campus

How does our urban environment reflect and influence our society, particularly radical political and social movements? And what lessons can a city like Beirut learn from other cities which are going through conflict? These questions are at the heart of an exciting new installation which will be launched on April 1, at 5:00 p.m. in the Sheik Zayed Hall, Beirut campus.

The exhibition presents the results of a research program at the University of Manchester, U.K., led by Dr. Ralf Brand, lecturer at the Manchester Architecture Research Centre. The project looks at the complicated but fascinating relationship between the urban environment and socio-political conditions in cities with different types of conflict: Belfast, Beirut, Berlin and Amsterdam. Beirut is the second stop of this touring exhibition. The research project was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the U.K.

The exhibition was designed by Vienna-based architect Andrea Boerner and artist Wolfgang Obermair and shows the outcome of the research in text and images. Large folded paper walls serve as fragile substrates that carry the various layers of information, visually linked by selected perforations.