(note: picture #1 below is identified as the home of Sayyid Abdur-Ra'uf Fadlullah, the father of Sayyid Mohammad Hussein Fadlullah.)
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22 September 2007
#1: Old Arches, Before the War
I looked through the many pictures and tried to choose those that offer architectural detail and style.
(note: picture #1 below is identified as the home of Sayyid Abdur-Ra'uf Fadlullah, the father of Sayyid Mohammad Hussein Fadlullah.)
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(note: picture #1 below is identified as the home of Sayyid Abdur-Ra'uf Fadlullah, the father of Sayyid Mohammad Hussein Fadlullah.)
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8 comments:
Ibn Bint Jbeil,
excellent. It is always a great journey to take upon when exploring your heritage, etc... I will get back to you in a few days with a comment for this section and the Great Mosque section.
i will be waiting with anxiousness.
Ibn Bint Jbeil,
these houses I see here are characteristic of the "Lebanese House". You may find much Ottoman influence in it but that's because the style and concept of the "Lebanese House" just like any other architectural element was in a dynamic state and adapted itself to its surroundings. Obviously, each village had a certain type of the "Lebanese House" model in abundance (there were different types). I am not sure what it would be in Bint Jbeil, I will have to explore it and return to you within a few days. (Academic life has started and you know what comes with that... But I promise I will come back with some helpful information. Just bear with me)
From what I know, the concept of the “Lebanese House” is very old and was in a constant state of evolution. Ragette divides the “Lebanese House” into four types, one of which is going to be the focus of this comment. However, it would be of relative importance to note that in most of these house types, a recurring element would be the external staircase, most of the time attached to the wall.
Ragette stresses that among the four house types, the central hall type is one of the most common and widespread houses throughout the country. Picture #4 represents a central hall house. It is actually considered unique to Lebanon as such a house is rarely to be found in Palestine and Syria, the latter being rich in its courtyard houses, which Lebanon somehow lacks due to its hilly makeup. As a matter of fact, the two-storey houses constitute the majority of the central hall houses although single floor houses and three-storey houses are to be seen. The arcade of the central hall in picture #4 has three arches, which is also predominant in Lebanon although two arches and five arches can be seen. Usually, the central hall is articulated on the outside through these arches and the arcade is emphasized and contrasted with the regular rectangular windows representing the other lateral rooms on either side of the arcade.
Generally, the central hall house became the model for villas towards the end of the 19th century. An interesting aspect regarding the favouring of the central hall house is the fact that the hall in most cases is directed towards the sea, thus a beautiful view could be afforded, and a favourable breeze could enter through the hall and at the same time be controlled with doors in the winter time. Add to that, the interior of such a house allowed for big families to live together while at the same time retaining their privacy as there were sufficient rooms to accommodate each individual. If you’ve ever been in one of these houses (like my great grandmother’s house in a village in the Northern Lebanese mountains), you would notice a strong sense of spaciousness in the hall and an immense axial drive.
While there may exist many similarities with Venice and Ottoman Turkey, Ragette explains that the central hall house is an aboriginal development and so is the triple-arch. With regards to the central hall house, I have seen great similarities with Ottoman houses and it seems to have flourished around the time the Ottomans took over and more specifically in the 17th century. This is an issue I would like to study furthermore and read upon. I will come back with some more insight on this specific house type and my observations on its origins and so on. However, I would like to note that my area of expertise is not in the study of the “Lebanese house”, its evolution and development and this is for two reasons: the lack of extensive research on it and the lack of interest in its teaching. There are many studies, especially concerned with Lebanon, that I have explored on my own and for which I have undertaken independent research. Ibn Bint Jbeil this would be a great opportunity for us to discover together and highlight the “Lebanese House”; what do you say? Maybe then we would be able to identify some features specific to Bint Jbeil.
I would love to, but how? I am far away. It would be a long term project that would require us to collect pictures and narratives from people. Taking part in this type of research woul be my dream.
As I read your analysis, I couldn't help stare at every nook of the arches, vaults, doors, windows, and imagine the hands that put them together, and my inability at this crucial time in history to lay my hands on them and see them face to face. The blue-green of the paint, the half-circle arches, the wide-arc arches, the lovely light yellow color of the stones.
My longing does not cease. First occupation, then destruction. Two different eras of distant exile and depravation from the beloved. No wonder Rumi's sonnets to Shams are so appealing, as are the songs of Fairuz & the Rahbani Brothers, Marcel, Oumayma elKhalil, etc.
I am very worried about the rebuilding process and how much of that is actually taking preservation into account.
and thank you so much for your ongoing input, as well as you enthusiasm.
Ibn Bint Jbeil,
I too am far away, although my research permits me to visit Lebanon more frequently. But, I definitely did not mean a large scale project while you and I are oceans away and neither one of us has access to material evidence or even financial sponsoring/support ;) I just meant something like what we're doing now. A very interesting give and take and a very intellectually stimulating dialogue.
Actually, I don't know why the concept of the 'arch' escaped me although it is predominant in all your pictures and it occupies the title of the post. Tomorrow, I will add an input on arches and a brief commentary on their origins. I am also going to speak about preservation and the law. Earlier on in May, I got in contact with my cousin, a lawyer, and tried to enquire on the law regarding the preservation of certain monuments... The information was very insightful. (Whenever you get bored or tired or whatever, please let me know!)
Oh, you did not really tell me what you personally thought of the central hall house. Does it not bring any significant memory to you? Does it not directly remind you of Lebanon's coast and hills and mountains? Yes, I will discuss the other house types which are abundant too but this house type is the most prevalent.
Thanks for thanking me. I also want to thank you for your very kind and generous comments about me. Plus, thanks for sharing the same interest and thanks for all this; it is yet another mode of learning, as is almost everything else in life.
posh,
sounds good; we will take on what we can. and please don't assume that i am ever tired of your writing.
yes, the arch! look at pictures 6, 9, 10 and 12 of this post. there is that wide arc that constitutes the arch. then again there is the half circle arch over some other doorways, as in 2, 7, 11 of this post.
i remember my grandparents' house, which was not in the center of town. I am told that it was built (only) 80 years ago or so (recent, relatively speaking) when my grandfather decided to move out of town and build a 3-room house in the "wadi," an area where many of the families owned fruit groves and farmland outside of the town, but where no one inhabited. it was not even one or two kilometers from town, but as the story goes, all the townsfolk told him, "why are you going to live with the wawiyeh?" the following generation saw people starting to build in all the outlying areas of the town towards maroon, 3aytaroon, 3ayn ebl, etc.
(check out this OLD POST.)
anyway, i remember that it was a one-story three room house originally, and my father had added a couple of modern bedrooms and kitchen and bathroom during the 60's. the original three rooms consisted of an entrance room that we kids called "oudet el-3atmeh", because when we were growing up it had been abandoned (it had a clay roof and no windows, other than a curiously solemn stream of light that came in a certain times of day from the stained glass above the door.) we did not use it except to sneak in there and play. but originally when it was my grandfather's family residence, it served as a stable i think, but i'm not sure, as well as an entrance room to the house. from it branched two rooms, and i remember they used to call one of them "el-ibliyeh," because it pointed south to the qiblah.
going back to the main room, it had the same half-circle arch we see in the posted pictures, and the half circle space within the arch was divided up into half a dozen orange slices of stained glass, if i remember correctly orange, white and teal in color. when israel withdrew in 2000 and people streamed back in (we hadn't been allowed back since 1978,) the clay roofs of all three old rooms had caved in, the stained glass was all broken, the old wooden doors were rotted, and many of the stone walls had lost structural integrity (many of the walls of the old part of the house had doors and windows that utilized the same types of arches seen in the pictures posted.) after 2000, my father began to rebuild the house, and he had to completely rebuild the place, but was able to convince the architect to keep a couple of the stone walls along with their arches, as decorative elements supported by newer walls on the other side for support. a couple of the older stone structures are on the exterior, and a couple are visible on the interior. Other than that, the entire house is now a new structure.
So I don't know if this fits your description of house #4, because i do remember i think that the three rooms together were one long rectangle, as illustrated in the second story of picture 4 of this post. when i went back in 1995 for the first time, i stayed out of the occupied zone and did not get to see bint jbeil. i went back a second time in 2004 and the house had already been rebuilt, so i no more chance to see the old house anymore.
plus during our upbringing, we lived in Beirut for the duration of the school year and went to Bint Jbeil for summer vacation only, (except for one year, i think 1977, when we actually fled beirut's fighting to live in bint jbeil,) so my memories are very hazy, as you can imagine.
[[ after your description of the "central house," the "shotgun house" of the southern united states came to mind; it was prevalent among post-slavery black americans and other impoverished people in the southern rural united states. it consisted of three rooms (or more) that were built in a row, going back from the entrance room, without a hallway. it was called the shotgun house because it was basically one long rectangle of receding rooms, and you can conceivably stand in the front door and shoot a shotgun out the back door.]]
please look at the new pictures in the most recent post. I see your description of the central house in the new pictures: #9, 10, 12, 16 and 17. beautiful. makes my heart ache; look at #15: could that big gaping hole in the second floor included the three-arches of the central hall?
Also look at the first 3 that show more ancient relics and my statement about them, as well as the vaults of the jame3 in #4 and in the house in #24, the arcade of the "diwan" in #5, the various recurrences of arched doorways and windows in many photos, and the presence of more distinct details in pictures #11 & 16.
please comment in the new post. and thank you again.
Ibn Bint Jbeil,
the central hall house is of different types (mostly 3), although one certain type is the most prevalent. Also, you have the houses, which are a conglomeration of the 4 different Lebanese house styles and types together.
As for picture #15, I think that most probably the hole could have previously been the arcade of the central house type.
There are so many topics to go into when talking of the "Lebanese House". I guess I will write about arches firstly and then about the different house types, borrowing from Ragette, who, as far as I am concerned, is the only one who has written such an extensive and useful study of the "Lebanese House".
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