The South Our Parents Told Us About

by Mohamad Nahleh and Meriam Soltan

"The South Our Parents Told Us About" narrates the shared histories and experiences embodied by the architecture of South Lebanon. Having grown up in the city, Mohamad and Meriam know their villages through their parents’ stories – through memories of war but also through recollections of lush green fields and humble beginnings. For the first time, they find themselves spending summer in the countryside due to Covid-19. The contested southern border of their parents’ youth is now but meters away, the extravagant palaces of defiant southerners a second line of defense behind UNIFIL’s Blue Helmets. The infrastructural anomalies of a new age attempt to tame the rugged terrain their parents once camped in as scouts. Today, perpetually unfinished family homes scatter construction across decades and are now as much a southern typology as the eccentric Neo-Roman villas designed across the countryside. In taking the chance to collect these moments, they trace the emergence of a third typology through the construction of a house Mohamad has designed for his parents in their village. This summer, Mohamad and Meriam invite readers to their parents’ south as they try to situate memory and design within the vast landscape they have together inherited.

Meriam Soltan / SMArchS AKPIA 2022

Mohamad Nahleh / SMArchS AD 2021