Bridging the Gap: Morphological Mapping of the Beqaa’s Vernacular Built Environment

Abstract

 Located 30 km inland from Lebanon’s coast, The Beqaa Valley (or Beqaa Plains) is considered the agricultural backbone of the country. The Beqaa’s built geographies were shaped by the political and economic hierarchies established by the Roman and Ottoman Empires and revised by the French Mandate. Local and regional economic hardships in the last six decades have led the Beqaa to cycle through periods of decline and recovery, with quick introductions of infrastructural technologies, spurts of loosely regulated building development, and hasty innovations in industrial activity. In this vein, ‘reflexive realism’ concepts of risk regime, logic of production, topographical fragmentation, and internal connectivity, are useful to examine how towns and cities in the Beqaa developed, deteriorated, and adjusted. However, spatial evidence that would inform such inquiries in Rayak, Beqaa, is far from similar to evidence observed in Beirut. Urban morphology research techniques combined with the concept of vernacular architecture can help decode the layers and uses of the built environment. This article introduces a mapping workflow that typologizes built fabrics using five morphological criteria (streets, density, open space, architectural character, and land use) to construct a spatial narrative that can begin characterizing the nature of the Beqaa’s cities and towns.