Son of Jane Jacobs

This is a humble comparison case it’s a simple one to see how we did manage to lose our balance and how we stuck in our miserable low life standard when we don’t know right doing from wrong doing, when a hero become a criminal and that an innocent idea to save a protect what is in the interest of all Syrians history and social fabric not for the money of a greedy developer become a taboo!

I’m talking about the case of Mr. Waed Mouhanna, I never meet the man that every Syrian in and out of Syria should read his articles, how can’t the judge didn’t see his passion for doing the right thing and only looked at his rage instead, how a minister of culture have the courage to personal attack Mr. Waed and making a law suite against him while he should be ashamed of his short sight and not doing the job that we the people of Syria trust him to do?

How is the heritage administration doesn’t do it’s research and protect our history instead of being a useless body of bureaucrats forgetting that they are protecting a prime locations in the cradle of civilization? Those two bodies should stand in the Syrian court of law and pay for their mistakes and lack of taking action when needed. And explain to all of us why they failed to do their job.

This Syrian hero story is nothing but a tragedy for all of us and for our Syrian system as a whole, reading about my new hero Mr. Mouhanna, I compared his story to the legendary Jane Jacobs, an American/Canadian urbanist, activist and a famous writer, she is well known international figure and her books are a must read for anybody who know the word ‘city’ or ‘urban’ she is also known for organizing grass-roots efforts to block urban-renewal projects that would have destroyed local neighbourhoods. She succeed in stopping couple major highway projects in the United State and Canada, yet she kept her dignity and no politician, developer or a planner dare to take her to court of law, she won the respect and admiration of everybody even her enemy, she was treated as a hero, even after she passed away her legacy continue.

As a tribute to Jacobs, the Rockefeller Foundation introduces the Jane Jacobs Medal, “to recognize individuals who have made a significant contribution to thinking about urban design, specifically in New York City.”

Are we as Syrian less human than an American-Canadian who did the same 40 years ago but they were treated with utmost respect and appreciation.

Mr. Mouhanna, deserve to be treated as Jane Jacobs and there should be a creation of a ‘Waed Medal’ to recognize individuals who have made a significant contribution to thinking about urban design, heritage and community protection, in EVERY SYRIAN City.

Funky Fukuoka

by Robert Nagata Zingg and Jihad Bitar

This month two young international architects point out the quirks of Fukuoka's often funky landscape.

Fukuoka, our Manzoku City*... but is she really built to please? To love her form requires steeling yourself for some brutal knocks on the head. Architecturally, there is plenty of love to go around. Naturally, no one argues over her splendid temples, and picking on the trendy American-style shopping malls is well, just too easy. Remember, those beloved temples were once the imported Disney Lands of their day.

Maintaining more recent structures has never been a priority, and for good reason. Frankly, they could all go tomorrow. The "Big One," typhoon, economic bubble, renegade airliner or Godzilla could wipe our urban slate clean. Kobe and September 11 illustrated again just how hard they can fall, so coveting the city and its dated engineering is courting an inevitable heartbreak. Many precedents exemplify how ancient architects rolled with the punches, and bent with the times. Traditional wooden buildings if shook violently were designed to fall apart neatly, and then easily reassembled. Kyushu farm houses were laid out in groups, providing a hedged bet that at least one would survive whatever an angry God or army could throw at them. Repairing the more recent buildings results in hybrids at best, and unfortunately, more than often, nasty mutants.

Here, renovation is dubbed "renewal." And renewal means new. "New"carries a special cleansing power which often takes precedent over aesthetics. The poorly maintained structures of the recent past are purified with aseptic, introverted concrete cubes in a flash. Ise Shrine could last a thousand years, but is rebuilt every twenty. So, what happens when town planners want to soften the jinx of a former graveyard or hospital for the chronically ill? They'll anesthetize the neighborhood with pure geometry and grandiose badges like "Pure Romanesque Earther Core de Maison Vague" (for your so-called European life). Ugly, but potent. Fukuoka's buildings, however funky, are married to a modern, semi-nomadic lifestyle and have become more of an apparatus than a home. In the future our tiny capsule apaatos will be as cool consumer products as today's keitai are. So watch your head, and find solace that even if you hate it now, relax: it won't be around for long.

*Manzoku: Japanese for "satisfaction," taken from Manzoku City, a tall shiny new pleasure dome in Nakasu.