SoA faculty member Dr. Chantal El Hayek will present the lecture “The Place de l’Étoile in Beirut and the Crafting of Colonial Neoclassicism” at the CAA Conference on Wednesday, February 12, 2025.
At the turn of the 20th century, Beirut transformed from a local market city into a transit hub for European goods. The medieval maze of narrow streets within crusader walls evolved into a bustling business center, crowned by the Place de l’Étoile. Popularized by Haussmann’s Paris, the étoile form was a symbol of modernization, epitomizing French colonial power. As French planners imposed this scheme on Beirut’s pre-colonial layout, scholars have noted its top-down nature, often referring to it as Haussmannian, military planning. In this talk, El Hayek will challenge this limiting narrative by suggesting that the design of the Place de l’Étoile in Beirut was influenced by pre-Haussmann traditions and contemporary ideas from the Société Française des Urbanistes, of which its designers, Frères Danger, were members.
El Hayek examines European radial planning, especially in France, and the integration of the star shape in Beirut. She contends that the Danger planning office’s techniques aligned more with the urban embellishment ideas of 18th- and early 19th-century figures such as Pierre Patte, Marc-Antoine Laugier, and Camillo Sitte, rather than with Haussmann’s comprehensive methods. She demonstrates how Beirut, with its smaller economy and municipal resistance, avoided the urban colonialism seen in other Ottoman cities, particularly in North Africa. This power devolution allowed the local elites to play a key role in urban renewal.