Libya Calling: RIBA Mission to Tripoli, 24-28 March 2013

“There is a moral imperative… that the institute should contribute what it can to the reconstruction of countries that British planes have bombed,” said Building Design magazine’s Ellis Woodman of the RIBA’s recent partnering mission to Tripoli (‘Libya’s aid is some reparation’ – BD Online 28.03.13). The reality is a country whose bombsites are few, peripheral and largely ex-governmental; surgically removed by NATO with only minor pockmarking to even the nearest bystander apartments. First-timers to Libya do also leap to the “British planes have bombed…” conclusion. In fact it is 42 years of neglect, corruption, underinvestment, political isolation and woeful or hands-off planning that have achieved what no ordnance could have: decrepit infrastructure, poor quality buildings, gridlocked roads, fly-tipped left-over spaces, the oppression of civic expression and a denial of the street as a civic space. Here, in the legacies of dictatorship, lies the RIBA’s mission.

There is a “moral imperative” to this work, even if Woodman is right that “some soft diplomacy is at work in this engagement… brokering relationships that will ultimately be of profit to the RIBA’s members.” “Moral,” because as Architects, we have a duty to work for the betterment of the built environment, wherever the society that it serves. “Imperative,” because with a projected 20% growth in GDP this year alone (IMF), the world’s fifth largest oil reserves (now almost back to pre-war exports) but with only a caretaker government and still no agreed constitution, the built environment is more vulnerable than ever.

 

It is vulnerable because problems that were manifest during my time in Libya between 2009 and 2011 – money, land, cars and housing –have become yet more urgent. It has a money problem – too much of it but not enough experience to spend it wisely. It has a land problem – a population of 6m, mostly stretched across its 2000km long coastline (often without title) where sprawl, the protection of sites of national importance or the making of good streets and civic spaces is managed only by dated planning models, if at all. It has a car problem – streets choked to gridlock by an oil subsidy that still makes it cheaper to fill up with petrol than with water, stoked by a booming import market for hand-me-down EU cars at bargain prices. Chronic housing shortages persist, exacerbated by a young population that prefers to move out of the family home. Elhabib Alamin, the Minister for Culture and Civil Society, is all too aware of the problems and the coming explosion of infrastructure investment: “We have one year to design the software before the hardware starts to arrive.” For the relative newcomers to governance that we met and in the context of an international perception of volatility that discourages travel and collaboration, our RIBA mission was significant.

 

As investors look on, Libya’s Architects are stuck on the side lines. Their title is not recognised as distinct from Engineers and there was, until recently, no voice for the profession. Meanwhile, Architects suffer from the perception shared by Libya’s Urban Planning Authority (UPA), that “Architects do not offer spatial or planning ideas.” Indeed, despite the valiant leadership of Osama Abdul Hadi – head of Tripoli School of Architecture whom we met there on graduation day – a lack of engagement from the international architecture community has visibly distanced his students from the level of contextual, social, cultural, climatic and sustainability debate that guides good architecture elsewhere.

We are supporting a lecture series and teaching initiative from visiting Architects to energise schools with new ideas. Meanwhile, in the industry, it is hoped that new laws to guarantee knowledge exchange through collaboration with Libyan counterparts will undo the trend towards “suitcase architecture” that once dominated the pre-revolution outsourcing of Libya’s major projects. Cullinans’ on-going relationship with Sami Jaouda’s Libyan Engineering Office (himself a delegate to the RIBA mission) on the substantial Madinat Hadaek Shahat project was and is a rare exception of a collaborative project.

 

 

Something haschanged though. The cultural amnesia brought by Gadaffi’s quasi-socialist autocracy has left a longing for Libyan identity in its wake. After decades of Italian Occupation and post-war, Anglo-French military administration, preceded by centuries of colonisation by Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines and Ottomans, Libyan identity remains nebulous. Here again, we found Architects being turned to as part of the solution by The Minister for Culture (an archaeologist by training), the director of Libya’s Ancient Towns Administration and by the inspiring Ikram Bash Imam – Minister for Tourism and Libya’s first female Architect. “How will archaeologists ever know that here was Libya?” we were asked. With a professional and political class that is often Western-trained or until-recently exiled, Libyans will need to look more broadly to find their cultural identity.

It was the embryonic, Benghazi-based, Libyan Institute of Architects (LIA) who first approached the RIBA in 2012, leading to UKTI (UK Trade & Industry) backing for our March 2013 mission that included five RIBA representatives plus two of us with past working experience of the country. The LIA brought with them their Tripolitanian colleagues, the Libyan Board of Architecture (LBA) and, together, our joint Libyan-UK mission helped to extend a network that ranges from conservation (the Historic Towns Authority) to renewable technologies (the Renewable Energy Authority of Libya, REAOL).

 

With a supporting resource in the RIBA, these often young and UK-US-trained Architects plan to become the voice of their marginalised profession. Ministerial offers to sit on decision-making committees and invitations from the Planning and Housing authorities to take part in collaborative workshops make the prospect of an effective lobby group for better procedure, regulation, strategy and design review more than possible.

“Think of Libya as a drug addict,” a director of the Libyan Investment and Development Company (LIDCO) told us. “Like a clinic, Libyan Architects must organise themselves and be ready when the country turns to them for answers.”

Posted by Philip Graham who worked alongside Cullinan Studio’s Roddy Langmuir on heritage, housing and urban projects in Libya from 2009-2011.

#RIBAlibya