BOHM DIALOGUE
Vol. 11 | July 31, 2022
Bengin Dawod, Julia Ovcharenko, Chris Keulemans,
Demyan Om Dyakiv-Slavitski
Amsterdam—Vienna—Kyiv
Summary
Participants discuss Bengin Dawod’s study of the reconstruction of Aleppo “The Soul of the City” as a case-study in community-responsive urban planning. The role of the architect or the urban planner is discussed. The need to understand local cultures is crucial to successful planning. Involving future residents in the planning process develops their sense of ownership over the result. The planning process transforms the participants’ vision of what is possible. Specific methods of engaging the local community in planning are discussed. Negative consequences of non-responsive development are described.
Key words
urban planning reconstruction architecture Aleppo Ukraine community humanistic ethics
Timecode
07:26 “The Soul of the City”
08:51 the city as a living organism
13:54 public space in a walkable city
19:24 diversity and urban design
20:45 case study: refugee camp
26:02 need for quiet spaces
30:16 timing of planning
36:37 the task of the architect
38:55 historic precedent in planning
44:19 sense of ownership
50:05 humanistic planning
58:55 the architect in the reconstruction process
01:01:36 case study: mobile unit
*
05:47 multi-disciplinary thinking in planning
07:36 early planning
09:38 ethics in planning
11:05 planning as a tool to transform imagination
17:14 Ukrainian architects’ response
22:53 the concept of tradition
25:09 methods of planning
29:47 iteration in planning
33:49 identity
38:30 connection between people and places
Participants
B — Bengin Dawod
C — Chris Keulemans
D — Demyan Om
J — Julia Ovcharenko
The Dialogue
B: In Aleppo, the government made sure that everything was erased, there was nothing left, there was no data, there were no archives, and it was a taboo to speak about that topic. The professor I worked with at the time had roots in that city, and we developed a methodology to interview survivors who were very afraid in the beginning to get in touch with us. You had to gain their trust, you had to be careful of what you ask, what you expect. It was really a long process of years. I always mention it when I start with this: we blindfolded them and let them walk and asked them to tell us what they could see then. It’s not about the physical, but it was more about how they felt the streets, what was there, what kind of memories, what was really the essence of that neighborhood. This is how we could redesign and resketch the whole neighborhood. This was for me as an architect a fascinating process, because you don’t start from a blank canvas. The client’s wishes are there. This case was different: how can you start from something that is invisible and touchable and actually very fragile. Unfortunately, when we finished the study, it opened up a wound, so it ended up on a shelf in an archive. It was quite a good experience but the revolution started and turned into a war.
I started studying urbanism because I wanted to go to a bigger scale. I started getting deeper into the question of what is a city — what makes a city a city? Is it the people who make the city a city? Or is it actually the complexity and the multi-layered nature of the city? Culture plays a big role in shaping, let’s say, the soul of the city. It accommodates it over years and eras, and the living culture which changes over time is the essence of that. I started researching how we can rebuild cities after disasters or wars, after conflicts. Because a lot of damage happens, and you can’t just erase the memory of war, so do you take it forward in your concept of building a city or developing the city, or do you ignore it and park it aside? I spoke with a lot of survivors but also engaged with different disciplines, just to understand the complexity of what it means. What is your memory of Damascus? I always questioned myself. I lived most of my life in Damascus and I always say, it’s the smell of the coffee on an early, spring morning where all the windows open up in the old city and everybody makes cardamom coffee; this is the city to me, the whole city. But then I ask myself how the physical shape of the city shapes that memory. I analyzed that, and of course, when the city was built, there were no city planners. The shapes of the buildings determined the streets; how close they were to each other; how the buildings were almost kissing each other at certain corners. So form can accommodate some shapes of memories but also experiences in the city. All those layers turned into that understanding of what is this city, how can you actually restore, or actually create, or accommodate a new soul here, and what does it mean for the people. Because people who inhabit a city change too.
I studied Aleppo, which is the second-largest city in Syria and was also the economic capital of Syria, as a case study. People there changed the way they live through the war, but also with the diaspora and how they came back there were questions of what they took with them, and what they brought back with them, what did they learn, and what do they need in the future. I added the extra layer of the bigger topics in the world: climate change, global warming. This is also very difficult. Because you are talking to people who really only need safety, and they want a house with a bathroom, but then you tell them to think about sustainability, and about energy, and the discussion becomes very tough. But it’s also funny because it also gives you a lot of actual input of how you can think about those topics to accommodate them.
I worked with a lot of partners in Switzerland and Brussels, trying to get the momentum because many people said, there’s still war, there’s still conflict, we can do nothing, but I keep saying, we can always do something. I made my study very pragmatic, trying to sketch out what is possible even now, and even now we can do a lot. I think that can also be true regarding the cities in Ukraine and other places in the world.
[07:26]
C: I love the way you think and work around this. Bengin made a book about this project ‘The Soul of the City’.
I wanted to ask you one thing just to be sure, Bengin. You’re telling us about how you speak with many people, former residents, people who survived the war, to try and uncover the soul of the city as they have experienced it. But just to make it very clear, you want to reconstruct that soul of the city, but you are not planning for a city which is a copy of what was there before. It is becoming a different thing. Can you tell us a little bit about that? So it’s true to the past, but it’s also fit for the future.
[08:51]
B: I always think of a city as a living organism. It changes, it develops, it evolves over time. In the study I try to also take the wounds of the war with me and make them part of this future city. There are some elements that almost everybody I interviewed or spoke to from Aleppo mentioned. They had one thing which was essential for them: this was the chair under a specific tree in the central part of the city. They said, when they walked from one part to the other on warm days, they always took a break under that tree on that chair, and this is a memory they wanted to keep. It doesn’t mean that you reproduce that chair there. But there should be a public element which accommodates that experience—it is up to the designer how to accommodate that. If people change their way of moving from one part of the city to the other, that means you need to change the place of that chair. It’s real time planning: you get what I call ‘soft data’ from the people and combine it with the hard data of traffic and the density, all the boring parts of our profession, and you try to make the best of them.
I always try to keep it simple. You need to be very adaptive, very flexible. That’s why scenario planning works very well because every time you get input you can do it with all different layers, all different stakeholders, all different kinds of people. It doesn’t matter how intellectual or not they are; they also discover that they can do something about their city, and that’s very interesting, because our cities were built by people. The context changed, and each city was developed differently. If there’s international power behind it, if there’s political will, things go very rapidly. You need to be a step ahead and that’s why you need to start even when there’s no attention at all. You try to prepare all the society, all the layers, all the stakeholders.
For me, it will be very interesting to engage with people who are in the Netherlands or other places now who come from Ukraine, who have the intention to go back. They will be part of the rebuilding; how do you prepare them? And remember, the future city is also concerned with climate change, with our global warming, with local food, with circular building, with natural materials. You can already plan for that.
The third part of the answer is the children. I do a lot of work with kids. I call them the future designers to also prepare them. In a playful way, I give them a chance to design a city which turns into a lamp they can take home and hang above their bed. Planning a city is not about today, it’s about the coming 50-60 years.
C: It’s interesting, Bengin, that we’re speaking here with two people who before the war always had these kinds of conversations while walking through the city. They understand what you’re talking about.
[13:54]
J: We’ve been thinking a lot about liveable cities, walkable cities, the space between buildings for people, for life. For me this topic is very personal, very deep and close. We think of people who have built this environment inherited by us, and we try to insert our culture and our habits in the spaces we got from the past. Now with the destruction of Ukrainian cities, it’s a big question of time and space and demand: who will be the people who live in the cities of the next generation? When displaced people come back, how will they want to see their cities with new experiences taken from other places?
B: I understand and I think you have the right questions, because people move, and they get new experiences, and they take something with them. I always say you come with a bag, and it gets more and more stuff in it, and then you want to go back with a full bag, so what do you take with you? That’s why it’s very interesting to keep in touch with people and try to manifest their wishes, even while cities are being bombed. You can ask, after the victory, what do you take with you from the experiences you just had in Amsterdam, or in Berlin, or in Geneva, or in any city in Europe? What did you think of that?
The public, walkable space is the essence of the city. It’s the defined space between the buildings, and the buildings are a frame for it; this is where everything happens. The buildings are not interesting anymore because inside the buildings mostly are private things and the public space is the essence of the city. But then how do you shape that public space? That discussion is going on even in the boring shy Amsterdam: how do we accommodate different cultures and different wishes of different groups and different people? We are trying to accommodate people instead of shaping how they should live. The expectation of the designers is that they design every little detail, but people also have the power to decide for themselves what they want. So, the designer should design just enough for people to fill in and make the space their own, and that’s always the challenge. Theoretically it sounds very simple, but we designers are crazy, we always want to go further, so the challenge is when to stop and say, this is enough. There’s a movement in the world now about small things with bigger impacts.
It’s also about doing it step by step, because the time aspect is very interesting in the healing process and in reshaping, forming the new society. We always want the results very quickly, because we want to celebrate the results. I believe you can speak about success regarding cities after 25 years, in a generation or even two. I think those two aspects are very interesting, that’s why I like your question. How can you facilitate a discussion of this with bigger groups of people who actually are in the diaspora? Is there a form of creating workshops, or a platform online, or is it one-on-one?
[19:24]
C: We’ve been discussing over the past few weeks what a society that accommodates different groups of people should look like. We were even talking on the level of the constitution, the government, social movements, etc. Now Bengin is translating that into the urbanist language.
D: If the cities need a facilitation process, how do we prepare these cities for this? It’s not only about open spaces, it’s about complexity.
B: It’s more complex. Amsterdam has been very busy with a new way of planning, and it’s about the infrastructure which is boring for a lot of people…
C: Define infrastructure.
[20:45]
B: I worked for years on the development strategy for a refugee camp in Jordan. They were struggling with how to define the space, because people were all over the place. When I joined the team, they didn’t have any background information about the culture of these people, and what people are capable of. The first thing we did was copy, adapt and paste. We took what was there, what people were used to, what they recognized, and we adapted these elements to the new context which was a refugee camp. One thing which worked very well was the moment you put sewage under the street, you define the street because people don’t want to live above the sewage. It’s also in the common interest, so people do not object to it, do not build over it, and with sewage lines the planners defined the streets in the camp in no time. They got the structure of a city. Then things start happening.
You have the hard infrastructure and you have the softness within the structure. The infrastructure must be for the future city which takes climate change into account, energy transition, all those things. For example, over the next twenty years Amsterdam will open up almost every street in the city four times to lay new infrastructure. If you can already now think of that, and accommodate it all at one time, you’re preventing a lot of headaches. You stay ahead with sustainable infrastructure, and then you come to the softer parts which is the culture. For example, there are different behaviors in different cultures — younger people like, for example, to hang out in the evening with each other. Other people always say, but we don’t like those young guys hanging out around. With small infrastructure elements, like a bench on a corner, you can accommodate different behaviors and different cultures, if you remember you are developing for different generations.
I know it’s also practice; that you need to also keep on practicing and learning, it’s a process. I think it’s also about knowing the people. Infrastructure is the invisible part, the physical invisible part of the city. For a future city, it should be already designed and made today, so that you can have the public space that can accommodate the new differences in society, and you won’t have to open it up in five years. This is very complicated, very case-by-case, this needs a lot of discussions and conversations with different partners, even on a political level, but on a very local level as well with all the people who live there.
D: Do people need more open space in the cities, in their daily lives?
[26:02]
B: I think, a lot of people in the city want to have the space where they can be themselves, where they can sit quietly with their thoughts, where they can also practice their culture, their habits, and their traditions, their living traditions, their ways of living. They don’t want to be forced into things. They need structure, but also there should be space for chaos and their own feeling for that structure.
There is a lot of research being done right now on the impact of green open spaces, the coolness and other benefits they provide, especially in the era of sitting behind computers in our offices and not interacting with each other. There’s an example from Kabul that wasn’t even planned. A small farm with a lot of trees was abandoned, and when people started coming back, they pitched tents around the city, but no one encroached on that green space. Instead, everybody went under those trees to sit, to have a conversation, talk to each other, socialize. I believe we can learn a lot from examples like this. I once made a graphic about this: there’s a loop, and you make sections and you make choices in time and scale and interventions, and then you see how they work, and if they don’t work you need to be flexible enough to adapt them again and again. It sounds very intense in the beginning but at a certain point it goes very smoothly.
J: So when the data is enough, everything is happening logically.
B: For us, it was a very painful process to collect data. Luckily I still had some connections, I knew some architects who were still in Aleppo, and they were also busy with collecting data about the city because you need all the data. I mean not only, for example, how much is destroyed, which kind of networks, which kind of infrastructure, which kind of basic daily-life needs, but even habitat, making sure the water is running. I asked how they were doing that, and they said they sent out water trucks. That’s not sustainable, that’s reactive. Can’t you offer people to have their own water tanks in their gardens to collect rainwater, for example, so they can disconnect from the main network till the network is functioning properly? There are always answers of smaller interventions which also fit in the bigger picture, but you need to know in advance what you want that picture to be. If it’s more about walkable cities, liveable cities, sustainable cities, energy-neutral cities, you can start with smaller steps, and you have a big impact over time.
[30:16]
C: Bengin, how do you look at the phase, the period of time directly after the war when people are returning with different experiences, people are moving into the city who did not previously live in that city and they are recovering from the war experience? On a personal level they have to pick up the pieces, but they also have to make up a new kind of daily life with jobs, with schools, with everything, and at the same time the city they now live in is beginning to reconstruct. This phase is very chaotic and very emotional, very complicated. How do you look at that phase? If we’re talking about Ukraine, I’m thinking maybe not about Mariupol, because that is so seriously destroyed, but maybe a city like Kharkiv which has a lot of damage but it’s still a functioning city.
B: I think about that all the time, Chris, because this is really the main phase; it defines the first 10 years of the city. New conflict starts in this phase: social conflicts, conflicts of different layers, of some people having better connections and being richer, and some people having more access to different facilities or different accommodations. That’s the part, I think, when society also reshapes itself. What I’ve seen with Aleppo was when the east part of Aleppo was at a certain point declared safe, there were 300 000 people living on the border in Turkey under olive trees for months, and they came back at once. The process of rebuilding started, but it was not rebuilding on a massive scale; people were just making sure one had a roof, one could sleep dry and had a bathroom. Then the struggle started because there was no infrastructure, there was no food, there was no water, you know. But again—we don’t need to undermine the power of people: in no time there were markets, people took initiative. Again, there was no central institution that could handle the chaos of rebuilding. It was whoever had time and the grasp of the bigger picture. UNHCR had a system for distributing solar panels, and they had the funding for sustainable energy, but you don’t just put solar panels on your house—you have to negotiate with your neighbors to restore the street, the water supply to your neighborhood. This is on the physical level, and on the mental level there’s healing going on, and that’s where conflict can emerge. In the traditional local culture, families know each other so they regroup, and there’s always the elder, the wisest person who you can speak to, Abu. It means the father because they are always the father of somebody. And you set up meetings with the heads of families in the neighborhood and discuss things. I was fascinated by this process, because it was through it that people started negotiating with each other again.
I think in Ukraine the situation will be different, because I think there’s still the government responsible for the process, and the government can play a big role.
[36:37]
B: Demyan asks, what is the general task of the architect? I think it depends on the architect, because not all architects believe the same things. I personally believe that you should use your pen. I always say: you can draw, you can translate the imagination, the wishes, the dreams of people into reality, and you are the mastermind behind their wishes, so you need to be really like a tool in their hands. You should forget your own agenda. You should only think objectively about what they wish. At the same time, it is your responsibility as an architect or designer urbanist to make sure that you respond to larger-scale challenges. If you involve people in the process and make them the owners of the process, they will maintain their neighborhood.
I always mention the example of my father and mother. My father built a house, my mother planted the trees in front of the house, and the sidewalk was made by the whole neighborhood, this is how I’ve grown up. There’s a lot of engagement with the neighbors, and a lot of social control, so no one damages anything. In Syria today, people have similar networks to share everything, because they need each other.
C: But you’re talking about ownership, not just a property. You want to educate people to take ownership not just for their own house which is their property but also for the neighborhood and the city including public space.
[38:55]
B: I don’t know about Ukraine, but in almost every city around the world there has been a historic era when people exercised ownership like that. So, we’re just bringing it back, trying to facilitate it and accommodate it. The government can make sure that people get enough support and tools to shape that ownership.
I’m always fascinated when I speak with a client who wants a house, and I say, okay, what do you want, and they always look at me like, you’re the architect, you tell me. I’m just a tool in their hand! The house starts with you, and the same goes for a city: it’s your neighborhood, it’s your city, what do you want? I have the knowledge of bringing all those complexities together but also thinking of bigger complexities; this is my responsibility. But the process must start with the people, and it’s a very intense process, not everybody’s able and capable of doing that. It demands a lot from you, and you get frustrated, you get a lot of mad people in your face sometimes, you get people who don’t trust you, all those things happen. But it’s about the end result which is to make the people own their neighborhood, and at a certain point, they understand what you’re trying to do, and then start believing they can do it, and they go ahead and do it.
C: Julia, can you tell us a little bit about how Ukrainians feel responsible for their neighborhood, their city? Is there a sense of responsibility? Is there a sense of, “we own this place together”?
J: That’s a good question. The recent past under soviet occupation was completely artificial for human behaviour. The shape and structure of cities was organized according to the ideological system, and many cities now have no idea how to get rid of that. I mean the district structure, the buildings of bad quality that were meant as temporary living places but stayed for 60 years. This war, this historical moment is actually a chance to get rid of all of that–nothing to rebuild. Better rethink the cities completely from scratch. Of course, this presents a huge challenge to people who have only their experience, and have no idea how the cities can be different. You start to imagine what your everyday life would look like if you wouldn’t take this awful bus, and go to the metallurgical plant, and then go to a local shop, and then go back home to watch TV. People have to imagine another lifestyle, but people are going through war trauma, they want everything they lost back because they feel connected to it. It’s really hard for them to imagine an absolutely different thing, and they don’t know where to draw ideas from.
C: Would you say that people’s sense of attachment, of ownership is strengthened because they see it being damaged or even destroyed?
[44:19]
J: Of course, they love what they had because they feel connected to what they had. Even if us as researchers can say, oh they were so wrong in their perception of a “good” city, of their everyday life, it could be much better, it could be much more comfortable, or just it could have a different culture. Any innovation needs time to get accepted; time for people to get used to it or bring their own practices and ideas to it. But what to do with people who have no idea what they want, no mental resources to get involved in design? They just want their simple apartment, their job, and their everyday life to be organized.
B: Of course, the fear of the unknown, we all have it. You want something because it makes you feel safe, and you don’t want the unknown because it is scary. These people have very simple wishes: they want an apartment, they want to know that they’re going to go from that apartment to their work, so this is very much something you can do in any kind of design.
We also had the soviet legacy in Syria: the big dominant streets where the big speeches were made. The streets were made to accommodate the military, but of course, throughout the war, people took over them. This is a cultural change, a switch that can be a starting point for discussion. Now that the people have seen how to use the space differently, let’s forget the past, and think about the future, think about a walkable city.
Finding the starting point is important, and so is recognizing the main patterns of the city, what most people recognize, and not changing that. This is also financially very desirable for planning cities, because you don’t need to change the whole infrastructure. Sometimes, you don’t need to destroy the old buildings: you can put them in a new jacket, and people still recognize them as something they know, but also see they are new.
[50:05]
C: Bengin, you build on a quite humanist picture of how people can take responsibility, feel ownership, work together, live together, but then Damyan’s question is: in the cities after the victory there will be evil as well, evil people, from the street-level criminals to the political level.
J: In many cases, this evil are developers who are driven by their financial interests and never motivated to listen to people.
C: Exactly. Not only does war change people, it changes bad people into even worse people. Aleppo is being reconstructed now but not in your way, but by big developers from russia, iran, Saudi Arabia etc.
B: And this is happening also in Damascus and in many cities in Syria. In Damascus, there was the last green part of the city which could make the city still literally breathable. There was a big resistance from the residents there to building, and the government made a specific law to allow the developers to take over the area. I bring up this example because it is what can happen if we don’t think ahead, if we don’t prepare. Yes, I understand, the way of living I grew up with is a hundreds years old, but I keep in touch with friends and families and people I know, and no one wants to go live in this new Damascus. assad is paying his bills back with these property developments, to the russians and the iranians, but who is going to live there.
I still believe in the power of preparing people—including warning them about what can happen. I don’t know how the structure will reform itself in Ukraine after this horrible war, but I don’t believe it will become a dictatorship. There will be a democracy, and people will have to use it intensively. They will need to use the political process. I’m not naive enough to believe that bad development will not happen at all, but I think the challenge for us is how we can limit it. There’s corruption everywhere in the world, and things will happen, so how can we keep them to the minimum, keep their impact small? What arguments can we bring? How can we be smart enough and make plans against the developers’ plans? For bigger powers, it usually works if you can show them you can do things cheaper and better. It goes back to money, unfortunately.
[58:55]
B: I always believe that architects, planners, urban designers should be the people leading the reconstruction process. The problem is, in the research I’ve done in Kosovo, and other cities, these professionals were not involved from the beginning, not until politically the decisions were made, developers bought the land, they had the money, and financially everything was ready. At that point, the architects got the assignment for 5,000 houses, say, in a certain style, and they were working for the developers, with no idea of who’s going to live there, who the actual clients are.
A professor of mine once told me, you can always argue and discuss, but also the architects are the ones who are building. The more you build, the more you practice, and you become better in that. But I don’t want to build something which I don’t believe in or don’t feel good about. Architects must be involved from the beginning, and with their gift for giving shape to imagined things, they can bring people along into the process in a way that politicians or developers can not.
D: How do you see the ideal format of your dialogue with citizens?
B: It depends on the context. There are different tools which I always use, and the choice depends on the group I’m speaking to. It might be making models together or sketching together, discussions, or presentations.
D: How to share it with different groups of our citizens?
[01:01:36]
B: One time, a while ago, we made ‘a mobile unit’, on wheels. We served coffee and we walked around in the neighborhood, and we invited people for coffee, and then we started asking questions. We didn’t get everybody, of course, but it’s about being persistent, and coming back, so you can gain the people’s trust, until at a certain point you engage them and invite them for a workshop. Then you can show them the big model and start discussing it with each other. We always think we need two hours, and it’s never enough.
C: Julia, you’ve also described to us how right now in Ukraine citizens are finding each other and are building networks, in a kind of beehive model. This could be the basis for what Bengin is talking about, when people already share responsibilities for survival and for the future, then it makes it easier for urbanists like Bengin to enter.
As we listen now to Bengin, it’s very clear how his profession and his way of thinking and his methods should be part of rebuilding society. Right now with the Cultural Hub you have a circle of philosophers, writers, activists, artists, cultural management, sociologists, but you didn’t have an architect or an urban planner yet. It seems like we are making the same mistake on our level that Bengin was just talking about in the bigger picture. Why is that?
J: I think it was a question of time. It had to happen sooner or later because we tried to give more attention to thinking, or to more moral or ethical questions and not trying to jump into solutions already.
C: I’m sure Bengin recognizes this argument. We can only conclude that Bengin is thinking on a very moral and ethical level, but it’s very easy for brain people like us to forget about this dimension of the work.
J: I see a lot of memory preservation in your work, Bengin, and your approach is very humanistic. Everything people create is based on their understanding of how they see their lives and their communities and their connection to each other, what makes up their culture in general. Building cities is just a step after that.
In nature it happens all together: culture, traditions, and making spaces for that. Now we have a very dense time, only a few months of our war experience. You worked with people who’d had more time to think, to reflect on their experience.
[05:47]
B: I think Chris’s recommendation is very apt. I know architects are solution-oriented. But I also think I missed out by not being connected to groups like yours, thinkers like yours in Syria, and it took me a long time to catch up on a lot of information. Believe me, you can invite architects or urbanists at this stage already, invite them to think along with you. I always make small notes and sketches because this is the info I also need to think about. An architect, an urban designer, a city thinker—those people should be part of the process. You can tell them in advance, look, we don’t know where things will start, but we are already feeding you information, input, so that you are ready the moment things do start.
Another thing is that the process of engaging local people in planning, getting to the communities on the ground, requires big teams. For a city, I would need twenty more architects and urbanists, because every neighborhood is unique, and you need to get to everyone.
[07:36]
So the bigger the group who believes in the process and can carry these ideas, the easier and quicker the process can go. Use the time now because this is also what we missed in the Syrian case. People are really finding each other right now, they are sharing experiences, they have the wishes, the hope is still there, this is the moment—I call them the golden moments, when you have a lot of contact, and a lot of input. You have to keep these running. Because at a certain point, things go flat, and mobilizing, engaging people again is a massive task.
[09:38]
D: I agree absolutely, and I see the power of groups of people throughout history. Small groups that begin with ethical questions—I think that’s our responsibility right now. I have a question about the Aleppo project: did it change people’s minds?
[11:05]
B: A transformation of thinking, yes. The mindset should be changed—that’s the biggest task. With a place, you have a history, you have the current situation, and you have the future, and all three are very difficult to think about properly. This is really about the transformation of thinking of how we design cities but also how we look at cities after war, after conflicts, after disasters, any rapid change which happens to the city and…
D: …and before any new disruption comes. How can the result of this project, for example, prevent a new war? How can we prevent indifference?
B: You just have to keep trying. I keep repeating it, and I, too, get very frustrated, but you have to keep trying, because the result people get is a better future. It’s their city, it’s their life, and their children’s life. For me, it’s very important that they get a better city and they don’t go back in time. Because, let me be honest, Damascus is now suffocating because the last green part is gone. The city is already very polluted, and in no time disease outbreaks will start happening.
If we believe in the power of people to change things with smaller steps, it is our responsibility to communicate this. We should give it to them, we should give them the opportunity, and if we succeed, if one person takes something up—I don’t know how it is in Ukraine–but in Syria, if one person gets solar panels on their roof, the whole neighborhood will, because people talk to each other. It rolls like a snowball. This is happening on a small scale, and it doesn’t have to be larger. I know that solutions I can offer one person will go viral at some point. I started with my relatives and friends, people I know, and they can trust me, and then the network grows. You must keep trying, and have these discussions with as many architects and urbanists from Ukraine as you can, so that this is at the back of their minds when the time comes for them to be part of the process.
[17:14]
J: The Ukrainian community of architects was one of the first to get organized. They created a working group and are already trying to find solutions. I hope and believe there are many people there who have this long-term approach and who dive really deep to find the right way.
B: Because it’s not for your own personal career. It’s really for the higher goal, for the moral question of your country, of your homeland, or your family, or your friends. You need to step in it like this. Sociologists, anthropologists, psychologists, trauma people, political parties who are involved, economists—they all need to be in conversation with architects and city planners. The same goes for cultural institutions that are most aware of what each city is about, what cultures are there, and how they can change. I think those are very legitimate partners. They don’t make the task of architects easier, and not every architect will be like that, but they need to know that this is part of the process. I think architects are now aware of that because of all the histories of all the cities that were unfortunately not well rebuilt and are suffering from a lot of problems. Take Kabul, for example. The United States spent billions to rebuild the city and look at it, it’s nothing with a corrupt government. The same goes for Beirut, or Baghdad.
D: And in all these cases russia is the cause, and I believe that the world without the russian federation will be better.
C: I’m very happy, Bengin, that you have joined today, and I really hope that you can join us later again when we start growing the circle. Because I always enjoy your way of thinking, and I think it’s super important. We can talk on the level of society, of philosophy, of government, of humanity, but we cannot do it without people who actually give us an image of the city that we live in, that we want to live in.
B: I fully believe you have now a group of people who are thinking on different levels: philosophy, thinking of the city, thinking of the trauma, and I think all those conversations are very valuable.
[22:53]
B: I once spent a whole day talking to a philosopher about what tradition is. Is it the old things we know from our parents, or is it the things we learn every day, or what? The conclusion of the session was the living tradition: it changes, and it changes us as we change it. This has an impact on how we shape our physical environment from a smaller scale to the bigger scale. An anthropologist, a city anthropologist is very important, a sociologist is very important. Politicians should be involved because they can speak about government structures in cities and planning cities. Economists can identify solutions to make things cheaper or faster, but also think about how things might work with outside financial support, because every international power that contributes to the reconstruction effort will come with their own agenda.
J: It seems like that works the same way in every country.
[25:09]
B: The context is different, but the method, the idea is the same. If architects are not involved in the process, not aware of these things, they get the blame for designing a poor city. I even had conversations with school teachers because they could tell me about kids and how kids behave, and that’s also something to know. As a designer of the space you need to know as much as you can about those people, their wishes, their behaviors, and their needs and demands.
I also try to teach students that. I teach architecture and urbanism at the university here, and I just did an international workshop with them, trying to open up their eyes to the wider world. We thought once after the second World War it would never happen again, but it happens all the time and continues.
[29:47]
J: It’s never possible to think in general categories, like people in services, people in production, what to do with the creative economy and what to do with all the freelancers and their way to go to places and accept places, or influence the places they want. Or how the pandemic changed our needs and spaces. We have so many tasks to reshape everything… and to do it the right way.
B: When you have a specific case, you can start questioning, and then every time you ask a question, you try to send for solutions, and then ask the next question—otherwise it stays abstract. I always try to break them down question by question. If we design now for the creative industry, for example, what does it mean, what does it do to the city? But then if we design for people who only work from home, what does the city look like? You make each scenario, and then you start combining them in your inclusive model, and you play with percentages of occupations etc. It’s like cooking, you add a bit more of this, and you add a bit more of that, and then you get a different taste, and that’s really nice, because from the same ingredients you can make ten different dishes. It’s good to start the process early, because with more time, you can ask more questions, and be better prepared for the aftermath. There will always be questions you never thought about.
J: But still, I hope we can leverage the experience already collected by others, so we do not start from zero in every place. There may be many solutions already available.
[33:49]
B: It’s like you have all kinds of medicines for all kinds of diseases, but still, so often you’ll run into a new disease, and you’ll have to think of something new. Knowing our ‘diseases’ certainly helps. I think this is why I spent the last few years developing a lot of tools, so that people could take them and be more prepared, react faster.
B: I once had a long discussion with a good friend of mine about the Syrian identity. I am Kurdish, born in a country where I was not accepted. I’ve had these questions about being accepted since I was eight. I still say I am Syrian, because that’s where I was born, and Syria hadn’t always been the way it was when I was young.
D: We understand, we know.
B: Now, we’re spread all over the globe, so what are we? Are we global citizens, or are we still the same people? Personally, I think I still want to have my grave in the town I was born in, you know. The soil I was born on is the place I belong to. But then our experiences have also shaped our identity: the experience of war, experience of diaspora. Then the question is, is our reshaped identity accepted in the place we come from? We don’t have the answer to this question because we haven’t returned yet. I hope one day I can say yes, it’s accepted there, because I’m changed, and they are changed.
This is why the memory part is so important to the Soul Of The City project. Memories like where you kissed for the first time, or where you went to do something you weren’t supposed to do—these things still keep me going, even though that particular street corner may not be there anymore. The question then is, can I re-create these things when I go back? Or do I put my memories in the new contexts that I build? The answer is still not there, but, yes, I’m Syrian, but I’m a global citizen. The moment you move out, you become part of a bigger world, you think on a larger scale. But I hope that my graveyard will be in the town where I was born.
[38:30]
D: It’s about the psychological connection between people and cities and between geography inside us and geography outside of us. Thank you very much for your answer, Bengin.
Questions
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Think of the place where you grew up. Do you think of being inside, or outside? Alone, or with other people? What time of year do you think of? What activities? Write about it in detail.
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As a resident of a particular place, what practices are available to you to participate in planning its future?
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The reconstruction process must be responsive to the residents’ memory of the past, feelings of the present, and the vision of the future. How can the built environment reflect/embody the range of residents’ emotions? How can the practice of cultural diplomacy be applied to reconstruction planning?
Resources
Dawod, Bengin. Living Aleppo. Bengin Dawod | Livingaleppo
Dawod, Bengin. The soul of the city. Aleppo case study. Urban Design in Post-War Reconstruction. Amsterdam Academy of Architecture. September 21, 2018. The soul of the city_Bengin Abdullah by Amsterdam Academy of Architecture – Issuu
Lehtinen, Heidi. Architect as peacebuilder — How to reconstruct a destroyed city. The Medium: Raven & Wood Agency. April 12, 2020. Architect as peacebuilder — How to reconstruct a destroyed city | by Heini Lehtinen | RWII by Raven & Wood Agency | Medium
