Early modernism in Lebanon:The trans-cultural migration of modernist ideas

Peedikaparambil Somasundaran, Aathira 2025. Early modernism in Lebanon:The trans-cultural migration of modernist ideas. PhD Thesis, Cardiff University. Item availability restricted.

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Abstract

This thesis examines the emergence and adaptation of modernism in mid-twentieth-century Lebanon, focusing on Beirut as a pivotal site of cultural exchange, artistic experimentation and architectural innovation. It positions Lebanese modernism not as a derivative extension of Western practice but as a negotiated, interdisciplinary phenomenon shaped by colonial legacies, local traditions and transnational intellectual networks. By analysing literature, visual art and architecture in tandem, the study addresses a significant gap in scholarship, which has tended to treat these cultural domains in isolation and to privilege external influences over local agency. The research aims to elucidate how modernist architecture in Lebanon was informed and enablated by developments in literature and the visual arts, and how writers, poets, painters and architects engaged in reciprocal exchanges that transformed global modernist paradigms into distinctly Lebanese expressions. It seeks to explore: (i) the role of formal and informal intellectual networks in mediating modernist ideas; (ii) the adaptability of the International Style and other global architectural languages to regional climates, materials and cultural frameworks; (iii) the ways in which modernism intersected with Lebanon’s socio-political transformations in the early to mid-twentieth century; and (iv) the processes through which global aesthetic models were strategically reinterpreted to address local ideological and environmental conditions. Methodologically, the thesis adopts a transdisciplinary and archival approach, combining multimodal discourse analysis, comparative study and close reading. Empirical materials like architectural drawings, blueprints, correspondence, artistic manifestos, exhibition catalogues, periodicals and photographs, were collected from key archives in Beirut and Paris, including the Arab Centre for Architecture, the Sursock Museum, the American University of Beirut, and the Centre d’Archives d’Architecture Contemporaine. These sources are examined alongside literary and visual works to trace the migration of ideas across disciplines, identifying the institutional, social and transnational channels through which modernism was localised. The study situates Beirut within broader debates on modernism, modernity and modernisation, drawing on perspectives such as multiple modernities, postcolonial modernism and cosmopolitanism. It examines the city’s position at the crossroads of regional heritage, colonial urbanism and global avant-garde movements, highlighting how its cosmopolitan environment fostered artistic and architectural experimentation. The research explores how international and local architectural practices were adapted to regional climates, materials and cultural traditions, and how these adaptations were shaped by exchanges with modernist developments in literature and the visual arts. By foregrounding interdisciplinary interaction, the thesis reconceptualises Lebanese modernism as a networked cultural process in which architecture was both influenced by and contributed to literary and artistic modernisms. It considers how tendencies toward abstraction and fragmentation in poetry and painting informed architectural form and spatial thinking, and how shared spaces such as cafés, salons and cultural institutions facilitated the cross-pollination of ideas across creative disciplines. Ultimately, the study aspires to enrich understandings of modernism as a transnational phenomenon by revealing how global models were critically adapted within Lebanon’s specific socio-political and cultural contexts. It seeks to contribute to architectural humanities scholarship by advancing a framework for studying modernism as a performative, interdisciplinary and locally negotiated practice - one that repositions Beirut as an active site of modernist innovation within global architectural and artistic discourse.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Date Type:	Completion
Status:	Unpublished
Schools:	Schools > Architecture
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	2 April 2026
Last Modified:	02 Apr 2026 14:28
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/186154

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