Photos of Beirut's abandoned buildings tell city's story
Gregory Buchakjian photographed abandoned buildings in Beirut to document the political and economic crises that have shaped the city and the rest of Lebanon. He is currently presenting what he discovered in an exhibition, book, and film.
In Beirut's Achrafieh district stands a dilapidated house, its chipped paint obscured by an overgrown garden. The only way in is through a roofless room on the side of the abandoned structure. This is just one of 700 deserted buildings explored and photographed by Gregory Buchakjian in “Abandoned Dwellings: A History of Beirut,” a new book culminating a nearly decade-long documentary project.
Buchakjian launched the book on Nov. 29 at the Sursock Museum in Beirut in tandem with a photography exhibition, “Abandoned Dwellings: Display of Systems,” which runs Nov. 8 through Feb. 11, 2019, and also features a short film. A Beirut native, Buchakjian is an art historian, multidisciplinary visual artist and director of the School of Visual Arts at Alba, the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts.
In 2009, the old buildings that Buchakjian had grown up exploring began to be demolished and replaced. “There was a feeling that these houses where disappearing, that the whole city was disappearing,” Buchakjian told Al-Monitor. “The city was transforming at such a fast pace, I needed to use a camera to capture something before it disappeared completely.”
For Buchakjian and his team, this approach slowly evolved into taking photographs of models in the buildings. “I realized that I needed someone to occupy the space,” he said. “It was a way for us to say we were taking back the houses.”
