Forensic Architecture

I.130  Airstrike in Barbour, Beirut

Date
26 Nov 2024
Summary
Hours before a ceasefire was declared in November 2024, an Israeli airstrike hit an apartment building in a residential neighborhood of Beirut. The parents of Ali Cherri, a renowned Franco-Lebanese artist, were killed in their home, along with one other. In support of a war crimes complaint brought in a Paris court, we reconstructed the apartment building, and analysed the sequence of events.

I.90  The Beirut Port Explosion: Destruction of Destruction

Date of Incident
04 Aug 2020 – Ongoing
Location
Beirut, Lebanon
Forums
In Partnership With
Febrayer Network
Summary
Following the 2020 Beirut port explosion, the city's grain silos suffered a prolonged period of steady ruination. To understand how the gradual destruction of a ruin happened behind state cordons in the nearly two-year period since the blast, Febrayer and FA reconstructed the site to present a unified account of the state’s mismanagement of this important site of material evidence and memory.

I.89  The Beirut Port Explosion: The Welders

Date of Incident
04 Aug 2020
Location
Beirut, Lebanon
Forums
Media
In Partnership With
Febrayer Network
Summary
This investigation examines the validity of the most widely accepted theory to explain what triggered the deadly blast in the port of Beirut on 4 August 2020. Lebanese and international authorities, as well as the FBI and the Lebanese Internal Security, claimed the fire that in turn instigated the explosion was caused by the shoddy work of Syrian welders—but our analysis challenges these claims.

I.65  The Beirut Port Explosion

Date of Incident
04 Aug 2020
Location
Beirut, Lebanon
Forums
Media
In Partnership With
Mada Masr
Summary
The explosions that ripped through the port of Beirut in 2020 devastated the city, leaving as many as 300,000 homeless. Following calls for an independent investigation, we mapped the contents of the warehouse where the blast originated and the spread of fire that instigated it, and have released our 3D models of the incident as a free resource for investigators and civil society.