Navigation – Plan du site

AccueilNuméros19ArticlesA Jesuit-Lyonnais Project in Nine...

Articles

A Jesuit-Lyonnais Project in Nineteenth-Century Beirut: Multiplicities of the Local and Global at the Université Saint-Joseph

Le projet des jésuites lyonnais dans le Beyrouth du dix-neuvième siècle, ou les multiples incarnations du local et du global à l’université Saint-Joseph
Yasmina El Chami

Résumés

Cet article traite de la fondation de l’université jésuite Saint-Joseph à Beyrouth en 1875 sous et de sa double allégeance à Rome et à la France. Généralement considérée comme un projet français, la mission jésuite s’appuie de fait davantage sur les instances supranationales de la congrégation et ses réseaux, que sur les moyens de l’empire français. S’interrogeant plus précisément sur comment les jésuites réussirent à construire un complexe urbain si imposant dans une cité régie par la loi ottomane, il apparaît que les notions d’empire et de nation étaient moins restrictives au XIXe siècle. Implantés simultanément dans plusieurs quartiers et sphères d’influence, les Jésuites purent manœuvrer et assurer la survie de leur projet. Opérant en marge de ce qui constituait le pouvoir “étranger” ou “colonial”, les Jésuites ont consolidé leurs positions dans la ville ; leurs constructions devant plus tard s’intégrer et servir de base aux intérêts coloniaux français. Le cas de l’université Saint-Joseph permet ainsi d’appréhender l’architecture coloniale non comme une extension du pouvoir colonial mais comme une condition de son avénement.

Haut de page

Texte intégral

Introduction

  • 1 I use Lebanon to refer to the territories of present-day Lebanon, although they belonged to a regi (...)
  • 2 See for example Mathew Burrows, “‘Mission Civilisatrice:’ French Cultural Policy in the Middle Eas (...)
  • 3 For details of the relationship between the Jesuits and French colonial policy see, in addition to (...)
  • 4 For details of the founding of the FFM see Carla Edde, Roland Tomb and Cynthia Ghobril-Andrea, Uni (...)

1Jesuit missionaries in Lebanon have held a prominent place in the historiography of missions and of Lebanon for many decades.1 Their relationship to Catholic Maronites and role in the growth of a Christian elite has been thoroughly studied and detailed by a number of historians and scholars, and their participation in France’s later Mandate and mission civilisatrice has been well established.2 Less examined within this expansive literature are the spaces and buildings constructed by the missionaries, and the political, economic, and social networks that made their impressive constructions possible. The history of the Jesuits in Lebanon has been narrated as a simple twofold narrative, in which the Jesuits established a religious mission in Mount Lebanon throughout the first half of the nineteenth century, which then transformed into an educational project once France decided that “anti-clericalism was not an article of export” and enlisted the Jesuits to pursue its imperialist aims over Lebanon and Syria in the last decades of that century.3 The establishment of the Université Saint-Joseph (USJ), in 1875, is understood as a French project, illustrating the beginning of a Jesuit-French “rapprochement” and a renewal of French imperial aims in Syria (fig. 1). While the French government did fund the establishment of a Faculté Française de Médecine (FFM) in 1882, to be managed by the Jesuits, resulting in a new campus in 1912,4 a closer analysis of the construction of USJ’s first site of 1875 reveals a more complex relationship between the Jesuits and their dual allegiance to Rome and France, as well as the important role of architecture and space within this transition.

Figure 1: First complex of the Université Saint-Joseph, built in 1875.

Figure 1: First complex of the Université Saint-Joseph, built in 1875.

Source: Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, RPo Proche-Orient Levant Photos.

2In this article, I argue that the period between 1860—which marked the Civil War in Mount Lebanon—and 1882, the date of the founding of a French-Jesuit medical faculty, attached to the Jesuit university, was instead a transitional period, in which the Jesuit Mission was much more reliant on its supranational Jesuit network than on French imperial support. The analysis is based on a reading of correspondence and visual materials sourced in the Jesuit archives in Paris and Beirut, the archives of the Œuvres de la Propagation de la Foi in Lyon, and the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Nantes. Questioning precisely how the Jesuits were able to construct such an imposing urban complex in a city under Ottoman rule, I show that “empire” and “nation” were not bounded notions in the nineteenth century. Rather, the Jesuit project was simultaneously inscribed within multiple localities and spheres of influence that allowed the Jesuits to navigate various oppositions and to ensure the survival of their project in Beirut, thereby paving the way for future political and urban influence. These multiple registers of the “local” and “global” were reflected in the architectural and urban project in different ways.

  • 5 For an overview of early debates see the historiographic essays by Norman Etherington, “Missions a (...)
  • 6 For an analysis of Jesuits as a ‘global’ order see Luke Clossey, Salvation and Globalization in th (...)
  • 7 The literature on missionaries in the British Empire is too vast to reproduce here; for an overvie (...)
  • 8 See, for instance, Paul F. Grendler, Jesuit Schools and Universities in Europe 1548-1773, Leiden; (...)
  • 9 See for instance G. A. Bremner, Imperial Gothic: Religious Architecture and High Anglican Culture (...)
  • 10 Some significant examples include Evonne Levy, Propaganda and the Jesuit Baroque, Berkeley, CA: Un (...)
  • 11 See, for example, Thomas Coomans, “East Meets West on the Construction Site. Churches in China, 18 (...)
  • 12 An idea initially elaborated by Mary Louise Pratt, “Arts of the Contact Zone,” Profession, 1991, p (...)
  • 13 See for instance Alex Bremner’s work on Anglican and other British missions (see note 9); G. A. Br (...)
  • 14 For example, Thomas Coomans, “East Meets West on the Construction Site. Churches in China, 1840s-1 (...)
  • 15 Michel Foucault, Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1977-78, edit (...)
  • 16 Examples of this strand include Bram Cleys and Bruno de Meulder’s work on Jesuit missions in Belgi (...)
  • 17 Mark Crinson, “The Powers That Be: Architectural Potency and Spatialized Power,” ABE Journal, no.  (...)

3The study of missionaries within a century defined by empire-building and colonialism has been the subject of longstanding debates. Indeed, though missionaries exhibited varied affinities or alignments with imperial processes and actors, missions were often private religious enterprises, and their relationships to both imperial processes and their home “nations” were neither universal nor static. Moreover, their cultural impacts and consequences on overseas territories were also differentiated and varied. For this reason, much recent scholarship has attempted to go beyond the blanket condemnation of missionaries as imperial actors, and to highlight the nuances and complex layers of their entanglement in multiple global and local worlds at once.5 Jesuits are particularly ambiguous to analyze in this sense, as their nature as a supranational or “global” order by definition elides their study as part of a national empire.6 Unlike Anglican or Protestant missions that accompanied settler societies and colonial enterprises in British colonies, Jesuit missions, particularly in the Ottoman Empire, were in a precarious relationship with France, and France itself held no formal authority in the region.7 The Jesuits’ “political” role in Europe derived from their instrumental role in countering the spread of Protestantism—a dynamic that was reproduced abroad, and that was also central to their activities in the Levant.8 Still, despite the centrality of such religious contestation to the history of both nineteenth-century imperialism and the rise of nation-states in Europe, most scholarship focuses on analyzing the political role of missionaries as deriving from their relationship to formal political, diplomatic, and colonial administrators and actors. Thus, scholarship has largely subscribed to a sharp division between the religious and cultural side of imperialism and its political or economic function. This division has also been reproduced in the study of missionary architecture, a topic relatively marginal to studies of colonial architecture and urbanism until recently. Where earlier studies on missionary or religious architecture existed, they studied missionaries as complementary to established colonial empires, particularly the British Empire, and to a lesser extent, the French Empire.9 The Jesuits, although not linked to a particular nation, were also the subject of a prolific literature, especially from within a hagiographic perspective. However, most studies of their architecture focused on the earlier work of the society, prior to its suppression in 1773, and on art historiographic stylistic debates.10 More recently, some studies have begun to explore a wider array of American and European missions, in contexts such as Australia, Canada, and China.11 Despite these varied focuses, both earlier and more recent research on missionary architecture has followed one of two approaches. The first approach focuses on architecture as a spatial and aesthetic form of discourse, viewing it as a cultural product. Such studies seek to understand how architecture, as style, as form, or as a system of knowledge, is shaped within a cross-cultural “contact zone.”12 Focusing on tracing directionalities and instances of assimilation, resistance, exchange, or synthesis, this approach views architecture mainly as a “representational” endeavor. Where scholars have questioned the political dimension of missionary architecture, they have focused on tracing the relationship of missionary actors to formal colonial actors, or on analyzing how such actors projected their cultural or religious identities through architecture.13 Some more recent studies, especially outside “formal” empires, continue to use this cross-cultural or representational approach.14 The second and much less dominant approach looks at missionary projects as a form of colonial governance, and studies the “spatial diagrams” of missionary spaces, inspired by Foucauldian notions of bio-political governmentality.15 Taking a clearer position on the question of missionaries as colonial actors, these studies focus on analyzing how notions of hierarchy and control, of racial superiority and distance, or of environment, disease, and climate shape architectural forms and the spatial planning of missionaries.16 Thus these two approaches illustrate what Mark Crinson has described as a “division and antagonism between the study of what has been called ‘visible politics’ and that devoted to ‘spatialized power.’”17 However, regardless of their position within this spectrum of interpretative possibilities, predominantly these studies have explored how architecture articulated or complemented existing systems of power. While such studies importantly challenge the long-standing ambiguity of missionaries within broader histories of empire, they nevertheless frame architecture’s relationship to power as an expression of the agency of its designers, funders, producers, etc., whether that is translated as semiotics or space.

  • 18 See note 6.
  • 19 This informal contestation and the missionaries’ role within it is the subject of a vast literatur (...)
  • 20 For the competitive aspect of Catholic and Protestant architecture in Europe see Alex Bremner’s wo (...)
  • 21 For details of Ottoman educational reform and the reaction to missionary penetration see Selim Der (...)

4Such questions are more complicated in the analysis of Jesuit missions and architecture, as mentioned above.18 Moreover, despite intense informal European contestation over the territories of the Ottoman Empire, Lebanon was not formally colonized by a European power—at least not until the beginning of the French Mandate of Syria and Lebanon in 1923.19 The Jesuits, alongside other Catholic foreign congregations and missions, participated in this informal European imperial contestation and penetration, and were intensely adversarial to the Protestant and Orthodox missions operating in the region. However, unlike the dynamics of Protestant-Catholic confrontation that defined nineteenth-century Europe and both Jesuit and Protestant missionary architecture in Europe or Europe’s colonies, in the Ottoman Empire this religious missionary competition was instrumentalized as part of a politico-cultural confrontation, and was in many ways more successful than formal imperial contestation.20 Preceding the Ottomans’ elaboration of a system of modern education—partly as a reaction to these missionary advances—foreign missionaries succeeded in establishing some of the largest and most enduring educational institutions in Syria, and particularly in Beirut.21 Though the analysis of the particularities of this religious and missionary contestation in this period are beyond the scope of this article, my aim here is to explore how the various lines of confrontation, contestation, or patronage that Jesuits had to navigate in an environment such as nineteenth-century Beirut resulted in particular and distinct aspects of their architecture and urban implementation in this period. I contend that through harnessing specific and multiple networks that crisscrossed the formal limits of empires and nation-states to complete their urban complex, the Jesuits gained a political influence unwarranted by their original situation. Their significant establishment became the basis on which renewed ties with France and claims of political influence could be made, paving the way for their transformation into colonial actors. Thus, the case study of the Université Saint-Joseph opens up the possibility of understanding colonial architecture not as an extension of colonial power but as a precondition for it.

From Mount Lebanon to Beirut: From Local to Global Mission

  • 22 Eleanor H. Tejirian and Reeva S. Simon, Conflict, Conquest, and Conversion: Two Thousand Years of (...)
  • 23 The Maronite Church is an Eastern Syriac Catholic Church whose members follow the monk St. Maron f (...)
  • 24 Endowing a land as waqf removes it from commercial circulation. For a general overview see John Ro (...)
  • 25 The Capitulations were treaty agreements made between the Ottoman Sultan and foreign powers giving (...)
  • 26 For a detailed overview of the first years of the Mission, see Sami Kuri, S.J., Une histoire du Li (...)
  • 27 Iliya F. Harik, Politics and Change in a Traditional Society: Lebanon 1711-1845, op. cit. (note 23 (...)
  • 28 David H. Finnie, Pioneers East: The Early American Experience in the Middle East, Cambridge, MA: H (...)

5A crucial distinction between the missionary project in the Levant and missions in Africa, Asia, or the New World is that the populations of the Levant could not be considered “heathens” or “noble savages” to be converted. Christianity in the Levant had predated its spread in Europe, and the histories of both regions had always been intertwined.22 Jesuit missionaries had first been sent from Rome to Mount Lebanon in the late sixteenth century, following the Council of Trent, to establish a relationship between the Eastern Catholic churches of the region and the Roman Church, and to realign the members of non-Uniate Eastern churches to the Papacy.23 Their influence in this early period came from the reception given to them by Maronite Emirs (princes), who gifted them lands as waqf (mortmain) to build on, and welcomed them as protectors of Catholicism in the Levant.24 Forced to leave when the Jesuit Order was suppressed in 1762, they returned to Mount Lebanon in 1831, at the insistence of the Catholic Patriarch Mgr. Mazlum, alarmed by news of the arrival of American Protestant missionaries in Beirut. Although still sent from Rome, as Christians they were protected by the Capitulations agreements, which placed European Catholics under French protection in the Ottoman Empire.25 However, the opposition to the Jesuits in France, and their replacement by the French Lazarist Order in the French government’s educational policy both at home and abroad, significantly weakened their diplomatic position. Instead, they relied on the financial patronage of Maronite notables and elites, successfully establishing large residences that developed around extensive rural fields and local constructions, displaying a well-integrated architecture (figs. 2-3).26 In this period, Beirut was still an unimportant town of 6,000 to 8,000 people, while Mount Lebanon constituted a quasi-independent provincial unit of governance within the Ottoman Empire, inhabited by dhimmi (recognized minorities) Christians and Druze.27 As historians have detailed, in this period each mission received the diplomatic backing of one of the European powers active in the region, and each targeted a corresponding Ottoman religious minority, reinforcing an emerging sectarianism: Orthodox missions were backed by Russia, targeting local Orthodox, Protestant missions were represented by Prussia and England, and targeted the Druze, and Catholic congregations were backed by Italy or France, and targeted Maronites and other Eastern Catholics.28

  • 29 For an overview of Beirut’s rise see Samir Kassir, Beirut, Berkeley, CA: University of California (...)
  • 30 Sami Kuri, S.J., Une histoire du Liban à travers les archives des Jésuites, 1816-1845, op. cit. (n (...)
  • 31 Lyon (France), Archives des Œuvres Pontificales Missionnaires (OPM), Letters E05175-E05195, E-15-e (...)

6From 1842, the Jesuits had begun adjusting to the rising importance of Beirut, after the Egyptian invasion of Mohammad Ali (1831-1840) and reforms to its port had spurred commercial and urban growth.29 Their interest was also the result of increasing Protestant and Orthodox missionary activity in the city. Additionally, in 1843, the Jesuit Mission had been transferred from Rome to the Province of Lyon, and began to benefit from the financial assistance of private Lyonnais Catholic charities.30 Nevertheless, until 1860 Beirut remained inaccessible to them, due to the strength of Ottoman administration in the city, and their lack of official diplomatic support from France. Here, they were forced to keep their residence limited to a small church and a free local school.31

  • 32 For details and the background of this civil conflict, and the role of European actors in it see L (...)
  • 33 Davide Rodogno, “The ‘Principles of Humanity’ and the European Powers’ Intervention in Ottoman Leb (...)
  • 34 John P. Spagnolo, France & Ottoman Lebanon, 1861-1914, op. cit. (note 19).

7The 1860 Civil War of Mount Lebanon marked a radical shift in direction for the Mission that would pave the way both for the transfer of the Mission’s center from Ghazir to Beirut and for renewed ties with France. What had started in 1858 as an intra-Maronite conflict between peasants and landed elites had transformed into a violent massacre of Maronites by the Druze, a result of half a century of European meddling and rising sectarian tensions.32 By 1860, Christian refugees had flooded the Syrian coastal cities, and the combined intervention of the Ottoman Empire and a European commission composed of France, Great Britain, Russia, and Austria was seen as necessary. A European military force of 12,000 soldiers was sent to Mount Lebanon, with France providing half of them. Fuad Pasha was sent by the Ottoman Sultan to coordinate the military response and put an end to the conflict.33 In the aftermath of the intervention, as the Ottoman Porte considered the political question of the Mountain, European powers turned to the problem of the refugees.34

Figure 2: Bikfaya Residence, Mount Lebanon. Only the bottom part was built in 1834, the arcaded rooms above in 1841, the Church in 1850.

Figure 2: Bikfaya Residence, Mount Lebanon. Only the bottom part was built in 1834, the arcaded rooms above in 1841, the Church in 1850.

Source: Missions catholiques, vol. 7, no. 327, 10 September 1875.

Figure 3: The seminary in Ghazir, in an old palace of the Chehab emirs, photographed in 1880s. A silk factory (right) was purchased in 1889 and in 1892 the entire complex was reconstructed in a neoclassical style.

Figure 3: The seminary in Ghazir, in an old palace of the Chehab emirs, photographed in 1880s. A silk factory (right) was purchased in 1889 and in 1892 the entire complex was reconstructed in a neoclassical style.

Source: Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, RPo Proche-Orient Levant Photos.

  • 35 Rafaël Herzstein, “Une réconciliation entre Paris et la Compagnie de Jésus au Levant (1875-1914): (...)
  • 36 Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, collection Prat IX, de Dama (...)
  • 37 Chantal Verdeil, La mission jésuite du Mont Liban et de Syrie: 1830-1864, op. cit. (note 2), p. 14 (...)

8Importantly, the 1860 French coordinated response had positioned itself as a humanitarian intervention. The setting up of relief committees to disburse French funds was overseen by the Cardinal Lavigerie, director of the Œuvres des Écoles d’Orient, a privately funded Catholic charity based in Lyon.35 In the context of a Second Empire sympathetic to Catholic congregations, Lavigerie mediated and reinforced the French government’s acceptance of the Jesuits and their renewed relationship. He demanded that a Jesuit be placed in each rescue commission, and appointed the Jesuit father Amédée de Damas at the head of these rescue committees. De Damas used his new position to push the French government to take the Jesuit Mission directly under its protection, and thus include it in its annual allocations.36 Although this linked the Mission more closely with France, which was now more willing to act as their diplomatic representative with the Ottoman Porte, and to provide some financial assistance, the funds came with strict requirements for the operation of charitable and humanitarian programs (such as orphanages) that would ultimately prove unwanted by the Mission.37 To the Jesuits, the growing urgency of countering the Protestants’ educational advances in Beirut was more important than humanitarian relief. The American missionaries of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) had founded a non-sectarian college in 1866, and in 1873 had completed their first buildings (fig. 4). The spacious and impressive campus of the Syrian Protestant college, and its distribution of medical diplomas, had attracted large numbers to the college, including some of the Jesuits’ original clientele, the Maronites.

Figure 4: Syrian Protestant college’s buildings and site, on a promontory in the western parts of Beirut.

Figure 4: Syrian Protestant college’s buildings and site, on a promontory in the western parts of Beirut.

Source: Washington DC (USA), Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Frank and Frances Carpenter Collection, LC-USZ62-93093.

9As early as 1862, Father Monnier, director of the schools in Mount Lebanon, had drafted a proposal to unite the various small schools of the Mission in a new, large college in Beirut. Monnier seemed aware of the insufficiency of their residence in Beirut, and especially of its limitations in providing the kinds of spaces that Protestant and other foreign congregations had started building in the quickly growing city. This was clear in his report of 1864 to Cardinal Lavigerie, in which he emphasized their inability to keep up with the proliferation of “establishments that ordinarily accompany the progress of civilization” due to their lack of funds:

38
  • 39 Monnier to Beckx, 1 November 1863, in Sami Kuri, S.J., Une histoire du Liban à travers les archive (...)

10Although the Superior General in Rome, the Provincial Superior in Lyon, and the missionaries in Lebanon all agreed in principle with Monnier’s plans, and were aware of the need to counter Protestant influence in Beirut, only the project for a new church was approved, in 1863. But it remained provisional, awaiting funds.39 It would take Father Ambroise Monnot’s arrival as a new superior in 1869 to execute the full project outlined by Monnier in 1862.

11In this new project, and especially as a consequence of the political events of 1858-1860, the Jesuit Mission was no longer a Maronite mission. Its aims, possibilities, and actions were now independent from local patronage; its ambitions and concerns turned towards its European setting. The difference between the early activities of the Mission and the new project for the new college in Beirut was structured around three main aspects. First, financial and political patronage shifted from a combination of local Maronite and private French Catholic associations to a more globally understood Jesuit network, as a result of various political changes in Europe and in Syria. Second, the urban context of Beirut provided a completely different setting for the Mission, which allowed for an urban strategy attuned to the Order’s established processes and architectural traditions, but also intensified local and foreign opposition. Finally, the project reflected the evolution of the Mission post-restoration and specifically its renewal in the Province of Lyon. In other words, the project for the college would result from a specific understanding of the Mission as situated within the concentric spheres of a Jesuit Order, a Lyonnais Province, and late-nineteenth century Ottoman Beirut.

A Jesuit Urban Vision and Insecure Local Position

  • 40 Bruno Dumons, “Prédicateurs et directeurs spirituels des élites catholiques lyonnaises (1890-1950) (...)
  • 41 See a summary of Monnot’s achievements in Joseph Burnichon, La Compagnie de Jésus en France : hist (...)

12Monnot, born and raised in Lyon, had spent some time in the residence in Algiers before returning to Lyon and completing his training at the Jesuit college in Mongré. From 1857 he had been the spiritual director of the Congrégation des Messieurs de Lyon, a secret congregation founded in 1802 to re-establish Catholic education among Lyon’s bourgeois elites.40 Monnot arrived in Beirut in 1869 with no specific knowledge of Syria, except for the ability to discern clearly which parts of the territory were now important enough to deserve the Mission’s attention. He also brought a strong urban vision to a mission that had thus far remained in large part a rural endeavor. Having inherited the project for the new church in Beirut, the tenuous question of Ghazir’s future as both seminary and college, and the issue of which residences to keep or abandon, he was able to rethink the Mission’s strategy on a much larger scale. Monnot’s leadership, although short (1869-1875), would settle the Mission’s future in both the emerging Lebanese territory and that of neighboring Syria.41 This territorial vision was matched with a strong urban strategy for growth and expansion.

  • 42 Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, collection Prat IX, Monnot (...)

13Very quickly, Monnot decided that the site of the residence in Beirut was inadequate for the Mission’s future. He saw the building of a new church in the existing Mission compound as a serious mistake, as the city was expanding outside its old boundaries and their site lay immediately beyond its old walls. In this site, there would be no possibility for urban growth. He estimated that it would cost the Mission less to sell their properties and relocate to a site where they could rebuild the college on an appropriate scale. His proposal was to relocate the center of the Mission to Beirut, thereby transporting the college and seminary from Ghazir to a new site in the city.42 Beirut was now clearly the most important city on the Syrian coast, and there was no longer any reason to remain limited to their old residences in Mount Lebanon.

  • 43 Thomas M. Lucas, Landmarking: City, Church & Jesuit Urban Strategy, Chicago, IL: Loyola Press, 199 (...)
  • 44 Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, collection Prat IX, Monnot (...)
  • 45 Thomas M. Lucas, Landmarking: City, Church & Jesuit Urban Strategy, op. cit. (note 43), p. 3.
  • 46 Ibid., p. 57.
  • 47 Ibid., p. 6.

14The search for a new site reflected Monnot’s affinity for a Jesuit urban and architectural strategy. Not only was he eager to avoid the piecemeal, haphazard growth the Mission had followed in its early projects, but the new project was also more clearly anchored in an existing Jesuit tradition of college building that the Order had refined throughout its long history.43 The old site had been located directly outside the old city’s main square, the Place des Canons, behind the Ottoman police headquarters. It was limited on all sides by streets and existing constructions, and totaled about 4,000 square meters. Monnot’s main objection to the existing location of the residence was not its proximity to the city’s core, but rather its limited possibilities of expansion. Unlike their antagonists, the American missionaries, who had selected a large, uninhabited promontory for their college, there was no ambition here to remove from the city, or to locate the residence far from urban life. Rather, Monnot seemed insistent on a particular relationship with the city. His preferred site was “as central as but more elevated” than their existing site, within five minutes of the Place des Canons. A rectangle roughly 120 by 80 meters in size, it extended south along the city’s new main thoroughfare, Damascus Road, and was surrounded by streets on all its other sides. Rising slowly as an “amphitheater,” it allowed for a “magnificent view of the sea” and better air (fig. 5). The site was also unique, according to Monnot, as it was “the only plot in this part of the city that was not yet built.”44 This location, at the periphery of a growing city, echoed older Jesuit urban strategies that had been established since Ignatius’ early foundations of the order as an urban-religious phenomenon.45 According to the Jesuit Thomas Lucas, since the earliest days of Christianity in Europe, monastic congregations had located their churches and seminaries at the edge of urban centers, in order to benefit from “the protection of being ‘in’ the city while not being ‘of’ the city.”46 For example, the building of a new Jesuit college in San Francisco, in 1854, exhibited an urban strategy that Monnot would echo in Beirut. Having purchased a large plot along the unpopulated end of Market Street, the Jesuit Father Maraschi had allegedly said: “let us build and wait [...]. This will be the center of a great city.”47 Monnot’s reflections about the chosen site at the southern edge of Beirut’s main square reflected a similar projective vision.

  • 48 For details of the rise of a commercial elite see Leila Tarazi Fawaz, Merchants and Migrants in Ni (...)

15However, in contrast to its increasingly Jesuit character, the new project no longer benefited from the longstanding support and patronage of Maronite elites, whose status had weakened significantly after the 1860 war. The process of securing the site illustrated a growing schism between the Jesuits and local Catholic notables, now consisting of an emerging bourgeois mercantile class.48

Figure 5: Sites of old residence and new college, in close proximity to the center of old Beirut and the main square.

Figure 5: Sites of old residence and new college, in close proximity to the center of old Beirut and the main square.

Source: Yasmina El Chami; Overlay drawing on archival map: Plan de Beyrouth dédié à S.M.I. le Sultan Abdul Hamid II par Julius Löytved. Original map source: Paris (France), Bibliothèque nationale de France, GE D 16879.

  • 49 Monnot to Gaillard, 20 March 1870, in Sami Kuri, S.J., Une histoire du Liban à travers les archive (...)

16The initially chosen site would prove impossible to purchase, as one of the owners refused to sell. Another site, very similar in size and characteristics, was found directly adjacent to it, “eighty meters away from the first site and on the same line,” extending east perpendicularly to Damascus Road. This plot had “only five owners instead of nine,” and Monnot estimated its size to be 10,000 square meters (although the actual size would turn out to be 18,000 square meters). The Mission’s consultants found this plot, which formed “an island” and was “perfectly neighbored,” even more suitable than the first, as the proximity to Damascus Road, a newly-built carriage road, would have brought inconveniences of noise and dust. Monnot informed Gaillard that “negotiations have started in the utmost secrecy and I am beginning to think that they will succeed.”49

  • 50 Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, collection Prat IX, Monnot (...)
  • 51 The archival documents published by Kuri include official notices sent by Monnot to the owners fol (...)
  • 52 Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, collection Prat IX, Monnot (...)
  • 53 Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, collection Prat IX, Monnot (...)

17The negotiations stretched over several months, during which Monnot, no longer as confident, was eager to remain secretive and discreet. Divulging their identity as buyers would have elicited higher prices from the owners, and the negotiations of their agent, the Maronite Antoun Tyan, were unnecessarily complicated, in Monnot’s view, due to “Arab maneuvers” and the “way of dealing with business in the country.”50 But the insistence on secrecy also evidenced an attempt to remain outside of Ottoman surveillance. Although the plots belonged to prominent Maronite families (such as Naccache, Tabet and Issaac), this was no longer the intimate patronage the Jesuits had benefited from in Mount Lebanon.51 Only Tyan, swearing absolute secrecy, knew of the Jesuits’ land purchasing plans.52 The importance of secrecy was emphasized by Monnot to the point of ridicule, and demonstrated the extent of the Jesuits’ insecurity in their new urban context. Unable to ascertain the true size of the property in broad daylight for fear of being recognized, but finding it crucial to judge for himself the real countenance of the plot and its value before finalizing the sale, Monnot visited the site “in the middle of the night” one night and measured it for himself, discovering that the plot was in fact 18,000 square meters, and contained several buildings.53

  • 54 Monnot to Gaillard, 30 July 1870, in Sami Kuri, S.J., Une histoire du Liban à travers les archives (...)

18Finally, at the end of July, the purchase was complete. The total costs amounted to 170,000 francs, and Monnot remarked happily to the Provincial Superior: “On trouve à Beyrouth que nous avons fait là une magnifique affaire.” [“In Beirut, it is said that we have struck an excellent deal.”]54 Although it is unclear here who was doing the “saying,” the importance to Monnot of what was being said about their business, and what the locals thought about their site, would return in the articulation of the architectural project as well. Monnot wrote to the owners, officially informing them that the property was now in Jesuit hands, and setting out a timeline within which they were to vacate their houses and lots. This was in stark contrast to the familial relationships the Jesuits had harbored with their Maronite neighbors in Mount Lebanon. The urbanizing context of Beirut had brought with it a formality that would now define the Jesuits’ relationship to their neighbors, students, and the local population. Although their aim was to counter the Protestant influence on Maronites and Christians in the city, there was no longer a natural affinity between the Maronites and the Jesuits. The use of education as a means of attracting influence leveled the field and necessitated a shift in perspective. Not only were the Maronites no longer the patrons of the Jesuits, but the Jesuits were also no longer the sole protectors of the Maronites. Architecture gained a more important role within this enlarged field of contestation.

A Supranational Jesuit Network and an Architectural “Modo Nostro”

  • 55 Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, collection Prat IX, Letters (...)
  • 56 Rafaël Herzstein, “Une réconciliation entre Paris et la Compagnie de Jésus au Levant (1875-1914): (...)
  • 57 Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, collection Prat IX, Monnot (...)
  • 58 Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, collection Prat IX, Monnot (...)
  • 59 Monnot to Gaillard, 21 August 1870, in Sami Kuri, S.J., Une histoire du Liban à travers les archiv (...)

19Once the site was secured, it was important to begin the project as quickly as possible, to regain some of the lost ground. But the sudden turn of events in Europe forced the project to a halt. In September of 1870 news had already reached Beirut of Rome’s impending surrender to the Italians. Funds from France, now engaged in the Franco-Prussian war, had also completely stopped. Additionally, the entire Order was in danger; not only in Rome, but also in France and in Lyon, where the Jesuit residences had been attacked, sacked, and some priests imprisoned.55 The collapse of the Second Empire had ushered in a renewal of anti-Jesuit and anticlerical sentiments in France.56 The Mission was greatly concerned with these events, and considering the question of both financial and religious survival. Monnot offered the various Mission’s residences as refuge for the European Jesuits. With regards to the funding of the college, he developed a new proposal: Why not go to America to raise funds? Since France was unable to provide allocations, “should they not knock at other doors?”57 Monnot conceived of this fundraising mission as a “crusade,” aiming to stop the Protestant advance: “It is good for the remedy to come whence evil comes, and the American Catholics won’t want to stay too far behind the Protestants who are sending huge sums here.”58 But it was important to counter Protestant advances with adequate buildings, and to build a college more impressive than that of the Americans. Monnot was hoping that Father Pailloux, superior of a residence in Lyon and architect of the residences in Vals, Pau, Grenoble, Lyon, and Cannes, would be sent to give them some help.59

  • 60 The various stages of the trip and the amounts received can be recollected from the series of lett (...)

20Eventually, after spending a few months in Lyon and in Rome refining the details of the new project, Monnot was given permission to begin a fundraising tour in the Americas and Canada. He embarked for New York with Pailloux in the summer of 1871, initially for a period of six months. After long, arduous, and only semi-successful campaigns in Montreal, South Huron, New York, Louisiana, New Orleans, and San Francisco, they returned to Beirut in November 1873, with a harvest of just under 1 million francs, the equivalent of $173,000.60 It is clear that the project for the college in this period was not yet influenced by French policy in the way it would be after 1881, when the French Government would fund the establishment of a new Medical Faculty. In this first iteration, it was rather the result of a Jesuit supranational network that could be harnessed while Europe, the Sacred Propaganda, and the Province in Lyon dealt with their own conflicts. This Jesuit “mode of operation” was echoed in the design and construction process of the college.

  • 61 Evonne Levy, Propaganda and the Jesuit Baroque, op. cit. (note 10), p. 24-25.
  • 62 Ibid., p. 77-78. See also Jeffrey Muller, “Historiography of the Art and Architecture of the Jesui (...)
  • 63 Levy charts this influence in the building of the Church of St. Ignatius in Rome, Evonne Levy, Pro (...)

21As argued by Evonne Levy, the question of architectural effect had been of primordial importance to the Jesuit Order since its foundation. In the pre-suppression company, the Baroque lavishness of Jesuit colleges and churches had been justified within a sensorial argument that linked the grandiose and overwhelming character of space and ornament to religious experience.61 More importantly, effect was linked to success; their buildings were conceived with the aim of reinforcing their reputation and attracting adherents.62 Public opinion was therefore important to the Jesuits, and influenced their constructions and architectural decisions. Architectural talent was understood as the ability to win fame and gather positive public opinion, a “talent for the greater glory of God.”63 In the context of a growing and urbanizing Beirut, and within the limited means of the restored company and the funds raised in North America at great expense, sensorial architectural effect was now rethought as functionality, solidity, and stature.

  • 64 Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, collection Prat IX, Monnot (...)
  • 65 Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, collection Prat IX, Monnot (...)
  • 66 Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, collection Prat IX, Monnot (...)
  • 67 As described by Richard Bosel, and detailed by Evonne Levy, “Early Modern Jesuit Arts and Jesuit V (...)

22Monnot was eager to start the construction quickly, as he believed the mere sight and news of their new constructions would enact the counter-Protestant measures the project had been primarily conceived for. Even as a construction-in-progress, it would “reanimate the confidence of both [their existing adherents] and strangers.”64 But his initial thoughts on the new college’s architectural style reflected its measured aims. It was unnecessary and even wrong to “build here completely à l’Européenne [...]; the country’s resources in terms of materials and artists do not make it possible to imagine a great ornamented architecture for the Church.”65 Father Peter Beckx, the Order’s superior in Rome, approved of these ideas. He “could not recommend enough that [the new constructions] be functional, healthy, and solid, neither pretentious nor luxurious.”66 Nevertheless, the completed complex was imposing, richly designed, and definitely inscribed within a “Jesuit architectural culture.”67

  • 68 See Levy’s discussion of the Jesuit “modo nostro” as a typological, rather than a stylistic exerci (...)
  • 69 This was the result of the Falloux laws in France, which allowed religious congregations to reopen (...)
  • 70 For details on this fragmentation, especially in educational policy see Mona Ozouf, L’École de la (...)
  • 71 Bruno Dumons, “Jésuites lyonnais et catholicisme intransigeant,” op. cit. (note 40), p. 131-134.

23As exemplified by the construction of the Université Saint-Joseph in 1874, the Order had also elaborated a sophisticated architectural strategy since the sixteenth century. It had developed a flexible typology for colleges to follow, and coordinated all the Society’s building projects from Rome.68 The fact that the early residences in Bikfaya, Zahleh, and Ghazir had not adhered to these strict architectural measures attested both to the tentative nature of the early Mission in Syria, and to the still-weak leadership in Rome, following the Order’s restoration in 1814. However, by 1850, the Society had begun flourishing again. Especially in Lyon’s Province, several new colleges had been opened, constructed along impressive proportions that evoked the lavishness of the Baroque colleges of the sixteenth and seventeenth century.69 Lyon in this period was a center of Catholic resistance that was far removed from the anticlerical environment of Paris, exemplifying the fragmented nature of the French nation in this period and the important role that educational policies played in this history.70 As detailed by Bruno Dumons, in this period a real opposition emerged between the “Fathers of Paris,” subscribing to a liberal, Gallican culture, and the “Fathers of the Midi,” who remained much closer to Rome.71 The building of the college in Beirut was therefore closely associated with this specifically Lyonnais renewal, and was reinforced by Father Pailloux’s involvement in the project. He played a crucial role in tying the new college to a broader network of Jesuit colleges, especially those built after the nineteenth century in the Province of Lyon.

  • 72 Pierre Moisy, Les églises des Jésuites de l’ancienne assistance de France, op. cit. (note 10), p.  (...)
  • 73 See Sam Jacoby, “Typal and Typological Reasoning: A Diagrammatic Practice of Architecture,” The Jo (...)

24Although very much a variation on the typologies elaborated by Pailloux in Grenoble, Pau, Vals, and especially the college Saint-Marc on Rue Sainte-Hélène in Lyon, the plans were nevertheless thoughtfully adapted to the local aims and context of the Mission. As detailed by Pierre Moisy, the Jesuit Constitutions had set out clear rules and procedures for all construction projects. These included the specific role of the Superior of each residence—who had the power to propose new projects, was then in charge of fundraising and procuring materials for them, and managing their construction; as well as the procedure to follow in drawing up plans, ensuring they were inspired by the existing library of plans, receiving the agreement of the local consultants of the Mission, and a final approval by the Order in Rome.72 These procedures had led to what can be understood as a “typological method” of designing, which still allowed for great flexibility in the adaptation of the project to its local site.73

25The construction of the college in Beirut evidenced a close adherence to these procedures. While the plan followed a common monastic typology, it was still considered within the local needs of the Mission. The main question of concern for Monnot, in the composition of the plan, was that of organizing the two dichotomous functions of the new site. The problem of mixing seminary students with those of the college had been an important argument in the college’s move to Beirut. Now that both seminary and college were to coexist in the new, larger, residence, it was important to compose their spatial interaction carefully. Monnot had clear ideas about these issues:

  • 74 Monnot to Gaillard, 21 August 1870, in Sami Kuri, S.J., Une histoire du Liban à travers les archiv (...)

In our plan, the seminary building would be separate from that of the college, operating autonomously with its own financial administration. Beginners at the seminary would go to class in the college to learn French, but Latin classes would be held in the seminary. This all seems to me a question of organization, but in principle we should unite and fortify ourselves, and have something complete in one site.74

  • 75 Ibid.

26This was aimed against any views that might have been entertained regarding placing the seminary in the old residence, and having only the College in the new building. Countering any notions of dividing the two functions, perhaps considered by the Propaganda in Rome, he was adamant about achieving a harmonious, unified spatial composition: “It would be a pity to have acquired a large and beautiful site in view of transporting Ghazir only to then execute something incomplete.”75

27But these arguments also illustrated the growing dichotomy between the Roman origins of Jesuit theological education and the need for a culturally French outlook, crucial to retain French protection. The case was resolved spatially in the organization of the plan. Pailloux proposed a large U-shaped building, in which each wing would be dedicated to one of the two main functions. Separating the two, the church projected perpendicularly out of the central wing, thereby providing a secluded courtyard on each side (figs. 6-7).

28The plan therefore followed with a minor variation the model of a Jesuit seminary, in which various parts of the building would have been aligned along the edge of the site, allowing for a large interiorized courtyard within (fig. 8). The departure was in the placement of the church. In typical colleges, churches were usually placed longitudinally along the street, or in line with the perimeter of the site (fig. 9). The adaptation of this principle in using the church perpendicularly to organize the two functions of the Beirut project attested both to Pailloux’s ingenuity and to the flexibility of the Jesuit typological method. Importantly, this typology was also a reflection of the Jesuit Order’s urbanity, and embedded the new University within the fabric of the growing city.

Figure 6: Plan of the university, with central church and two wings, as completed (around 1883).

Figure 6: Plan of the university, with central church and two wings, as completed (around 1883).

Source: Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, RPo 43, File 1, USJ Présentation.

Figure 7: The university complex as seen from the south, with the central church and chevet.

Figure 7: The university complex as seen from the south, with the central church and chevet.

Source: Missions catholiques, vol. 8, no. 328, 27 October 1876.

Figure 8. Illustration of the university as a “model” Jesuit seminary.

Figure 8. Illustration of the university as a “model” Jesuit seminary.

Source: Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, RPo Proche Orient Levant Photos.

Figure 9: Étienne Martellange, Collège Henri IV, La Flèche, France. Plan de situation: état des constructions faites ou à prévoir, 1614.

Figure 9: Étienne Martellange, Collège Henri IV, La Flèche, France. Plan de situation: état des constructions faites ou à prévoir, 1614.

Source: Paris (France), Bibliothèque nationale de France, M 134560.

A Lyonnais-Beiruti Construction

  • 76 Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, collection Prat IX, Monnot (...)
  • 77 Beirut (Lebanon), Archives de la Compagnie de Jésus, dossier 6-B.31, P. François X. Pailloux.

29While awaiting Rome’s approval of the plans, Pailloux, accompanied by Brother Girardin, who was to act as foreman, moved to the site to begin construction.76 The Jesuits themselves contributed to a large part of the labor and building works. Pailloux and Girardin were assisted by Brother Mercier for the ironworks and by Brother Winlen for the large-scale labor and masonry.77 The first step consisted of grading and terracing the plot, a measure which exhibited a sensitive consideration of the topography of the site and a knowledge of the building practices common in the region, perhaps acquired in their long years in Mount Lebanon. The Jesuits approached the building process as a contextual operation, and most of the materials were sourced from areas surrounding Beirut. Monnot had sent a detailed estimate to Gaillard, relaying information on local building methods and their cost:

  • 78 Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, collection Prat IX, Monnot (...)

The walls are only 35 centimeters thick and it is unnecessary to think of double walls, ornamented inside. For these walls, a stone particular to the country is used, it is a very common stone, light, slightly porous, and that absorbs lime plaster admirably well. All these stones are very easily cut into elongated cubes and the lime plaster that binds them produces a cohesive force that makes it so that they can no longer be detached. The most beautiful houses of Beirut are thus constructed and can brave the centuries.78

  • 79 Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, RPo 43, File 12; Sami Kuri,(...)

30The stones were sourced in two quarries, the first, near Deir el Qamar, for the yellow ramleh sandstone predominant in Lebanese constructions, and the second near Deir el Qalaa, in Broumana, from which the Jesuits acquired stones for the columns of the church. While the sandstone was used for the bulk of the construction work, the latter, a form of dolomitic limestone, locally called bouzennar, was used in ornamental work, often in alternating white and dark pink patterns.79 The use of local methods and materials was designed to allow the Jesuits to complete their constructions in a quick and cost-effective way:

  • 80 Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, collection Prat IX, Monnot (...)

With this method of building, walls go up with a surprising speed. These stones cost 12 to 16 francs the hundred and there are 10 to 15 in a square meter. As the stone is light and already cut, the work goes very fast. Right now the day rate of a mason is around 2.50 to 2.75 francs. It has been a long time since construction labor has been so inexpensive.80

  • 81 Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, collection Prat IX, Belot t (...)

31Indeed, eighteen months after the first excavations, at the end of June 1875, the main parts of the new college were “more or less complete.”81

  • 82 Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, collection Prat XXVI, Beckx (...)

32The final complex was composed of the main three-winged building, which combined the college, seminary, residence, and church, a new building for the printing press, and low buildings around the perimeter, which included service functions and would have completed the enclosure of the site. But the construction was conceived in phases, and in 1875, in addition to the press and some small service buildings, only the façade and the central wing of the main building had been completed, with more classrooms projected to be built within the two wings later, and the final enclosure walls, landscaping, and grading remaining.82

  • 83 Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, RPo 21, File 2, Mission de (...)
  • 84 Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, RPo 21, File 1, Mission de (...)
  • 85 Beirut (Lebanon), Archives de la Compagnie de Jésus, dossier 6 B.31, P. François X. Pailloux.
  • 86 [Feuilleton] “L’Université Saint-Joseph à Beyrouth,” Missions catholiques, vol. 8, no. 368, p. 187 (...)

33More concerned with the impression and effect of their new constructions than with the spaces they would provide, the Jesuits were aware that their “monumental façade” presented “a superb development” in the fight against the Protestants, even though “its exteriors hid two incomplete wings.”83 Indeed the façade was imposing; “the traveller visiting the city of Beirut would have been struck by the aspect of an immense edifice at the front of which he would see a cross.”84 According to the notice on Pailloux, the building was “by its size, order, and beauty really stunning for these regions.”85 Stretching over 103 meters in length and 18 meters high, with side wings 75 meters deep, high pavilions, and a vast church, the complex, in the Jesuits’ opinion, was “the most beautiful monument of Beirut” (fig. 10).86

Figure 10: North façade of the Jesuit University.

Figure 10: North façade of the Jesuit University.

Source: Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, RPo Proche-Orient Levant Photos.

34Constructed entirely in local sandstone, the building’s façade was nevertheless devoid of any excessive ornamentation, save for stone detailing typical of Renaissance architecture. This included modillions along the top cornices, blind arcades surrounding arched windows, and vertical and horizontal flat stone buttresses which divided rhythmically the long façade and gave it its “order” and “beauty.” The church, on the other hand, had received a more important treatment. A very close copy of the Chapelle Saint-Marc of Lyon, also designed by Pailloux, it was finished in a similar color scheme, a combination of dark rose marble columns and plain yellow plastered walls (figs. 11-12). It followed a Romanesque plan, with a large central nave and two side piers separated by an alternating arcade of single and double marble drum columns topped with chiseled Corinthian capitals and circular arches. The ribbed cross-vaulted ceiling was supported by two stories of arcaded rows, and allowed for a clerestory level in which each vault was subdivided into three arched windows. The chancel ended in a semi-circular apse doubled by a circular ambulatory extending from the side piers, and from which it was separated by lower, smaller arches. In the apse only, the clerestory windows were inset with stained glass, each representing a different saint.

  • 87 J. B. Piolet, S.J., “L’Université Saint-Joseph de Beyrouth,” Revue d’Histoire des Missions, vol. 2 (...)
  • 88 Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, RPo 43, File 12; Sami Kuri,(...)

35A significant difference, in the Saint-Joseph Church, is that the ground level arches of the main nave’s colonnade were horseshoe shaped, unlike those of Saint-Marc, which were simple round arches in all three levels (fig. 13). This gave the Beirut Church a “Moorish” character that was seemingly meant to embed it more firmly in its “Oriental” context.87 The capitals on each level were slightly different from one another, and the ground floor columns extended outside the church’s interior into the main lobby of the central wing. In contrast to the remaining parts of the building, only the marble tiles of the ground floor and the church were bought and imported by Monnot from Italy in 1875.88 Extending from the lobby and in both directions, a colonnaded corridor linked the three wings and delineated the two courtyards on each side of the church. Later, the colonnaded corridors would link the half-constructed wings to an enclosed volume of classrooms on each side. For the opening of the college, however, only the most basic spaces were needed, and the first seminarians and collegians moved into the building in October 1875.

Figure 11: Church of Saint-Joseph in Beirut.

Figure 11: Church of Saint-Joseph in Beirut.

Source: Sami Kuri, S.J., and Lévon NordiguianÉglise Saint-Joseph des pères Jésuites, Beirut: La Compagnie de Jésus, 2001.

Figure 12: Saint-Marc Chapel in Lyon.

Figure 12: Saint-Marc Chapel in Lyon.

Source: J.P. Galichon, Geneawiki.

Figure 13: Horseshoe-shaped arches and colored marble at the Church of Saint-Joseph in Beirut.

Figure 13: Horseshoe-shaped arches and colored marble at the Church of Saint-Joseph in Beirut.

Source: Sami Kuri, S.J., and Lévon NordiguianÉglise Saint-Joseph des pères Jésuites, Beirut: La Compagnie de Jésus, 2001.

  • 89 Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, collection Prat IX, Belot t (...)
  • 90 Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, collection Prat IX, Letters (...)
  • 91 Samy Zaka, Education and Civilization in the Third Republic: The University Saint-Joseph 1875-1914(...)
  • 92 Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, collection Prat IX, Rapport (...)
  • 93 Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, collection Prat IX, Monnot (...)

36Despite all their careful planning, the construction and elaboration of the project had encountered some setbacks. As mentioned above, the context of the city had intensified and multiplied opposition from a variety of sources. On the most immediate level, the Jesuits were dissatisfied with the workmen they had hired. As Father Belot lamented, the construction could have been finished even earlier and at less cost, had some of the “strangers” whom the Jesuits employed to supervise constructions not abused their trust; some of the work had to be consolidated if not redone entirely.89 More importantly, the Mission had faced routine visits from the Ottoman municipal prefect and had been given multiple orders to stop construction immediately, as they had begun the project without awaiting permission from the Porte.90 Especially as a result of the Ottoman reforms known as the Tanzimat, promulgated between 1839 and 1876, religious actors in the Empire needed to obtain official permission, known as a firman, to construct religious buildings.91 The Jesuits saw these interruptions as a sign both of a growing Prussian influence in Constantinople and of the waning “prestige” of France, following its defeat by Prussia.92 They believed that the “English and American Protestants [were] working actively to stop them from finishing.”93

  • 94 Ibid.
  • 95 Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, RPo 21, File 2, Mission de (...)
  • 96 Observations du Père Rubillon, 1873, p. 408-409; and Réponse de Mgr. Jacobini to Beckx, 28 June 18 (...)

37The Jesuits were clearly worried about the loss of France’s influence in the region, and the rise of anticlericalism in Europe was accompanied by a growing suspicion towards their surrounding local context. Even “the two main Catholic rites,” the Maronites and the Greek Catholics, “were manifesting a jealousy that they did not even bother concealing.”94 Not only had they lost their special relationship with the Maronite elites, now attracted to the Protestants’ college, but the Maronite archbishop, Mgr. Debs, had from 1873 begun lobbying the Sacred Propaganda for permission to open his own Maronite college in Beirut.95 Although the Jesuits remained on good terms with Debs, and invited him to place the first stone of the new building in 1874, they were eager not to have to compete with yet another college, and the Mission’s consultant, Father Rubillon, had to write to the Propaganda in Rome to ensure that the encouragement given to the Maronite Patriarch would not undermine their own project.96 Thus, competition and angst had not only engendered the project, but continued to structure it as it developed.

  • 97 Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, collection Prat IX, Monnot (...)
  • 98 Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, collection Prat XXVI, Beckx (...)
  • 99 Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, RPo 43, USJ Problèmes Commu (...)

38Facing all these issues, Monnot kept a strong lead and maintained an audacious and illicit resistance. He continued construction works against and despite all Ottoman orders, hoping that progress on the building would prevent the Porte and the Ottoman governor from acting on their threats.97 Although the Father Superior, Beckx, in Rome, was worried that if the Jesuits didn’t comply with the firman process, the Pasha would confiscate the buildings once complete, Monnot was confident about his fait accompli strategy and hoped that the completion of the works would establish a new order.98 Under Ottoman Law, once the roof of a building was completed, the Ottoman prefect would no longer be able to prevent its use.99

39As the Jesuits would explain to the French ambassador a few years later, during the discussion regarding founding the French school of medicine:

  • 100 Nantes (France), Ministère des Affaires étrangères (MAEN), 166PO/E/640, Turquie: Jésuites, de Dama (...)

Until now, in our foundations, we have always proceeded through the strategy of the fait accompli. We opened without authorization, and if we were opposed for some issue, we hid behind a consul or even the shadow of a consul and remained generally un-attacked, by virtue of the principle that possession equals deed. I don’t need to add that we were not acting out of systematic contempt of the law, but out of necessity. The subjects of all foreign nations have not ceased to use it as such. I don’t believe that the British notably, or the Americans, proceed otherwise.100

40Indeed, the firman for the college’s construction never came, but with the completion of building works, the Jesuits’ position was secured; they could finally compete again with the other foreign missionaries vying for Christians and other locals in the city.

Colonialism as “Fait-Accompli” and the Autonomy of Architecture

  • 101 Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, collection Prat XXVII, Note (...)
  • 102 Nantes (France), Ministère des Affaires étrangères (MAEN), 92PO/A/337, Sienkiwiecz to Tissot, 12 A (...)

41Although the Jesuits had transferred their seminary to the city, the move had not been accompanied by a shift in religious and educational strategy. In many ways, the building had constituted an empty receptacle, a material and physical way to mark their presence in the city. Yet an imposing building was not enough, as other congregations in the city were busy building their own “fortresses.” The biggest threat remained that of the Protestant college, which was awarding medical degrees.101 Still, the impressive complex gave the Jesuits a stronger foothold in the city, and became instrumental in lobbying the French government for support to establish a medical school once completed. This would eventually lead the French government to realize that the Jesuits’ project was “eminently useful and practical,” and best placed to secure the development and maintenance of French influence in Syria.102 In the last two decades of the nineteenth century, the Jesuit project would consolidate into a strongly French project, leading to the construction of an entirely new campus in 1912 (fig. 14). Thus, although the Jesuits’ architectural project of 1875 did not constitute an expression of existing political power, it became instrumental in its attainment.

42As the construction of the USJ illustrates, the monumental complex was neither a representation of French political power in this period, nor of a French-Jesuit rapprochement. Quite the contrary, as I have shown, the construction had taken place despite Ottoman resistance, the loss of Maronite support, French center-periphery dichotomies, and Franco-Roman conflict. Nevertheless, for each aspect of the project, the Jesuits harnessed a specific network of influence and support, thereby navigating through varied oppositions. While funding was secured through the supranational nature of the Jesuit order, the project’s urban character relied on a long tradition of Jesuit construction and on the expertise of its Lyonnais circle of direct support. Meanwhile, in Beirut, the project relied upon the discreet support of its remaining Maronite ties and the “shadow” of French diplomatic support to divert Ottoman resistance. Finally, the completion of the project allowed the Jesuits to reclaim an urban and cultural influence in the city, and to reposition themselves as useful political actors. And although none of the various stages of the college’s construction evidenced any real French support, the Lyonnais character of the Mission nevertheless became the basis for framing the project as advancing French “prestige” in the Levant, thereby eventually enlisting official French diplomatic support.

  • 103 Frederick Cooper, Colonialism in Question: Theory, Knowledge, History, Berkeley, CA: University of (...)
  • 104 Ibid., p. 11.

43Beyond its implications for re-evaluating the temporal limits of French colonial interests in Lebanon, this example highlights the need to reconsider our understandings of the local and global in the writing of colonial architectural histories. Thus, it is important to attend to the multiplicities of localities to which transnational and imperial actors often belonged. As Frederick Cooper has noted, “the spatial imagination of intellectuals, missionaries, and political activists [...] was neither global nor local, but was built out of specific lines of connection and posited regional, continental, and transcontinental affinities.”103 The case of the Jesuits in Beirut not only exemplifies this claim, but also demonstrates that the limits of the “nation-state,” “religion,” and “empire” were not impermeable in the nineteenth century. France itself was not a static political entity, and the Jesuits could simultaneously be Lyonnais, Roman, and opposed by Parisian Gallican Catholics. And just as “empires should not be reduced to national polities projecting their power beyond their borders,” so colonial architecture should not be reduced to that which was built by official national or colonial state actors.104

  • 105 Tom Avermaete, “The Socius of Architecture: Spatialising the Social and Socialising the Spatial,” (...)

44Especially in contexts of “informal” imperialism or inter-imperial contestation such as that of the nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire, architecture and urban space were not a posteriori results of political power, but preconditions for it. It was precisely by taking advantage of their extra-territorial and supranational status that missionaries and foreigners were able to construct buildings and institutions that could not be wholly opposed by the ruling Ottoman Empire, but that became the basis for subsequent colonial claims. Although the Jesuit Mission was not necessarily colonial at its beginning, this paper has traced the role of architecture and space in transforming it into an increasingly colonial project of spatial and urban influence. To borrow Tom Avermaete’s words, here, architecture, once built, acquired a “semi-autonomy” derived yet distinct from the economic, social, and political processes underlying its production.105 It not only operated as a spatial marker of power, but the processes involved in its production also allowed the Jesuits to test strategies with which to expand and consolidate their urban presence. Thus, the architecture of the Jesuit complex was itself an agent for later colonial claims. This suggests that, without being attentive to these processes and their specific spatial and material contingencies, we miss the agency of built form to any political project beyond those of official state-sanctioned power, as well as the potency of buildings’ survival in the neo-colonial present. What is at stake in the study of the architecture of colonialism is not only the agency of the multiplicities of actors, their localities, and their hierarchies within the project, but the agency of architecture itself in making possible colonial futures.

Figure 14: Faculté française de médecine, complex and buildings, built in 1912.

Figure 14: Faculté française de médecine, complex and buildings, built in 1912.

Source: Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, RPo 60 Brochures, Faculté de médecine, les nouveaux bâtiments. Beirut: Imprimerie catholique, 1913.

Haut de page

Notes

1 I use Lebanon to refer to the territories of present-day Lebanon, although they belonged to a region known as Greater Syria or Syria in the nineteenth century. Syria, in this article and in the correspondence, refers to these territories (encompassing parts of present-day Lebanon, Syria, and Palestine).

2 See for example Mathew Burrows, “‘Mission Civilisatrice:’ French Cultural Policy in the Middle East, 1860-1914,” The Historical Journal, vol. 29, no. 1, March 1986, p. 109-135. URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2639258. Accessed 13 December 2021; Jennifer M. Dueck, The Claims of Culture at Empire’s End: Syria and Lebanon under French Rule, Oxford; New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2010 (British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship Monographs); Chantal Verdeil, La mission jésuite du Mont Liban et de Syrie. 1830-1864, Paris: Les Indes savantes, 2011; Edward A. Falk, “Lyon to Liban: Language, Nation, and Faith in the Jesuit Schools of Ottoman Lebanon,” in Julia Hauser, Christine B. Lindner and Esther Möller (eds.), Entangled Education: Foreign and Local Schools in Ottoman Syria and Mandate Lebanon, Beirut : Würzburg : Orient-Institut ; Ergon Verlag in Kommission, 2016 (Beiruter Texte und Studien, 137), p. 163-180; Susanna Ferguson, “‘A Fever for an Education:’ Pedagogical Thought and Social Transformation in Beirut and Mount Lebanon, 1861-1914,” Arab Studies Journal, vol. 16, no. 1, 2018, p. 58-83. URL: http://www.arabstudiesjournal.org/uploads/4/4/2/7/44276267/ferguson_asj_spring2018_article.pdf. Accessed 13 December 2021; Rafael Herzstein, “Les phases de l’évolution de l’Université Saint-Joseph à Beyrouth: les premières décennies (1875-1914),” Historical Studies in Education/Revue d’histoire de l’éducation, vol. 24, no. 1, 2012, p. 21-41. DOI: https://doi.org/10.32316/hse/rhe.v24i1.3469; Chantal Verdeil, “Naissance d’une nouvelle élite ottomane. Formation et trajectoires des médecins diplômés de Beyrouth à la fin du XIXe siècle,” Revue des mondes musulmans et de la Méditerranée, no. 121-122, 2008, p. 217-237. URL: https://journals.openedition.org/remmm/4983. Accessed 13 December 2021; Samy Zaka, Education and Civilization in the Third Republic: The University Saint-Joseph 1875-1914, PhD Dissertation, University of Notre Dame, South Bend, IN, 2006.

3 For details of the relationship between the Jesuits and French colonial policy see, in addition to note 2, Dominique Chevallier, “Lyon et la Syrie en 1919. Les bases d’une intervention,” Revue Historique, vol. 224, no. 2, 1960, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, p. 275-320; Rafaël Herzstein, “Une réconciliation entre Paris et la Compagnie de Jésus au Levant (1875-1914): faux-fuyant ou nécessité ponctuelle?,” Mémoire spiritaine, vol. 2005, p. 96-113. URL: https://dsc.duq.edu/memoire-spiritaine/vol22/iss22/7. Accessed 13 December 2021; William I. Shorrock, “Anti-Clericalism and French Policy in the Ottoman Empire, 1900-14,” European Studies Review, vol. 4, no. 1, 1974, p. 33-55. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/026569147400400103; John P. Spagnolo, “The Definition of a Style of Imperialism: The Internal Politics of the French Educational Investment in Ottoman Beirut,” French Historical Studies, vol. 8, no. 4, 1974, p. 563-584. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/285853; Jacques Thobie, Les intérêts culturels Français dans l’empire Ottoman finissant: L’enseignement laïque et en partenariat, Leuven: Peeters, 2008 (Collection Turcica, 16).

4 For details of the founding of the FFM see Carla Edde, Roland Tomb and Cynthia Ghobril-Andrea, Université Saint-Joseph. Portrait d’une université, entre tradition et modernité, Beirut: Éditions de l'USJ, 2016; Rafael Herzstein, “Les phases de l’évolution de l’Université Saint-Joseph à Beyrouth: les premières décennies (1875-1914),” op. cit. (note 2); Chantal Verdeil, “Naissance d’une nouvelle élite ottomane. Formation et trajectoires des médecins diplômés de Beyrouth à la fin du XIXe siècle,” op. cit. (note 2); Samy Zaka, Education and Civilization in the Third Republic: The University Saint-Joseph 1875-1914, op. cit. (note 2).

5 For an overview of early debates see the historiographic essays by Norman Etherington, “Missions and Empire Revisited,” Social Sciences and Missions, vol. 24, no. 2-3, 2011, p. 171-189. DOI: 10.1163/187489411X581030; Dana Robert, “From Missions to Mission to Beyond Missions: The Historiography of American Protestant Foreign Missions since World War II,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 18, no. 4, 1994, p. 146-162. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/239693939401800401; and Arthur Schlesinger, “The Missionary Enterprise and Theories of Imperialism,” in John K. Fairbank (ed.), The Missionary Enterprise in China and America, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974 (Harvard Studies in American-East Asian Relations, 6), p. 336-374. For more recent transnational perspectives, see, for instance, Ryan Dunch, “Beyond Cultural Imperialism: Cultural Theory, Christian Missions, and Global Modernity,” History and Theory, vol. 41, no. 3, 2002, p. 301-325. URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3590688. Accessed 13 December 2021; Andrew Porter, “‘Cultural Imperialism’ and Protestant Missionary Enterprise, 1780-1914,” The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, vol. 25, no. 3, September 1997, p. 367-391. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/03086539708583005; Andrew Porter, “Religion, Missionary Enthusiasm, and Empire,” in Andrew Porter (ed.), Oxford History of the British Empire. 3. The Nineteenth Century, New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 222-246; Heather J. Sharkey (ed.), Cultural Conversions: Unexpected Consequences of Christian Missionary Encounters in the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia, Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2013 (Religion and Politics), p. 1-28; Eleanor H. Tejirian and Reeva S. Simon (eds.), Altruism and Imperialism: Western Religious and Cultural Missions to the Middle East, New York, NY: Columbia University Middle East Institute, 2002 (Occasional papers, 4).

6 For an analysis of Jesuits as a ‘global’ order see Luke Clossey, Salvation and Globalization in the Early Jesuit Missions, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. See also, for work on global dimensions in the “new” or restored Society after 1812, Robert Aleksander Maryks and Jonathan Wright (eds.), Jesuit Survival and Restoration: A Global History, 1773-1900, Leiden; Boston, MA: Brill, 2014 (Studies in the History of Christian Traditions, 178).

7 The literature on missionaries in the British Empire is too vast to reproduce here; for an overview, see, for instance, Norman Etherington (ed.), Missions and Empire, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005 (Oxford History of the British Empire Companion Series); Andrew Porter, Religion Versus Empire?: British Protestant Missionaries and Overseas Expansion, 1700-1914, Manchester ; New York, NY: Manchester University Press, 2004; Brian Stanley, The Bible and the Flag: Protestant Mission and British Imperialism in the 19th and 20th Centuries, Leicester: Apollos, 1990. For more on Catholicism’s uneasy relationship with the French Empire, see J. P. Daughton, An Empire Divided: Religion, Republicanism, and the Making of French Colonialism, 1880-1914, New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2006; Owen White and J. P. Daughton (eds.), In God’s Empire: French Missionaries and the Modern World, New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2012. See also notes 2 and 3.

8 See, for instance, Paul F. Grendler, Jesuit Schools and Universities in Europe 1548-1773, Leiden; Boston, MA: Brill, 2018, p. 59-63 (Brill Research Perspectives in Jesuit Studies); Eleanor H. Tejirian and Reeva S. Simon, Conflict, Conquest, and Conversion: Two Thousand Years of Christian Missions in the Middle East, New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2012, p. 58. Although this competitive aspect of missionary activity in the Levant and Syria has been acknowledged by most scholarship on missions, no study has yet analyzed the Jesuit-Protestant dimension of this competition in detail, or their activities together. See, for instance, Julia Hauser, Christine B. Lindner and Esther Möller (eds.), Entangled education: foreign and local schools in Ottoman Syria and Mandate Lebanon, op. cit. (note 2); Julia Hauser, German Religious Women in Late Ottoman Beirut: Competing Missions, Leiden; Boston, MA: Brill, 2015; Jens Hanssen, Fin de Siècle Beirut: The Making of an Ottoman Provincial Capital, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005 (Oxford Historical Monographs). My doctoral dissertation focuses in particular on this Jesuit-Protestant competition and its manifestation in architecture and urban space, but an analysis of both missions together is beyond the scope of this article. See Yasmina El Chami, The Project of the City in Nineteenth-Century Lebanon: Missionary Competition and Collective Colonialism in Beirut, 1820-1914, PhD Dissertation, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, 2021.

9 See for instance G. A. Bremner, Imperial Gothic: Religious Architecture and High Anglican Culture in the British Empire, 1840-1870, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2013; Idem, “Narthex Reclaimed: Reinventing Disciplinary Space in the Anglican Mission Field, 1847-1903,” Journal of Historical Geography, vol. 51, 2016, p. 1-17. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhg.2015.10.013; Idem, “The Corporatisation of Global Anglicanism. Architecture, Organisation, and Faith-based Patronage in the Nineteenth-Century British Colonial World,” ABE Journal, no. 2, 2012. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/abe.357; Idem, “The Architecture of the Universities’ Mission to Central Africa: Developing a Vernacular Tradition in the Anglican Mission Field, 1861-1909,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, vol. 68, no. 4, 2009, p. 514-539. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/jsah.2009.68.4.514; Bram Cleys and Bruno De Meulder, “Imagining a Christian Territory: Changing Spatial Strategies in the Missionary Outposts of Scheut,” in Fassil Demissie (ed.), Colonial Architecture and Urbanism in Africa: Intertwined and Contested Histories, Farnham: Ashgate, 2017, p. 201-238; Bruno De Meulder, “Mavula: An African Heterotopia in Kwango, 1895-1911,”, Journal of Architectural Education, vol. 52, no. 1, 1998, p. 20-29. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1531-314X.1998.tb00252.x; Ralph Ghoche, “Erasing the Ketchaoua Mosque,” in Daniel E. Coslett (ed.), Neocolonialism and Built Heritage: Echoes of Empire in Africa, Asia, and Europe, Abingdon; New York, NY: Routledge, 2019, p. 87-105 (Architext Series); Ruth Kark, “Missions and Architecture: Colonial and Post-Colonial Views, The Case of Palestine,” in Eleanor H. Tejirian and Reeva S. Simon, Altruism and Imperialism: Western Cultural and Religious Missions in the Middle East, op. cit. (note 5), p. 183-207; Emily Turner, “The Church Missionary Society and Architecture in the Mission Field: Evangelical Anglican Perspectives on Church Building Abroad, c. 1850-1900,” Architectural History, vol. 58, 2015, p. 197-228. URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/26406258. Accessed 13 December 2021.

10 Some significant examples include Evonne Levy, Propaganda and the Jesuit Baroque, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2004 (Ahmanson-Murphy Fine Arts Imprint); Pierre Moisy, Les églises des Jésuites de l’ancienne assistance de France, Rome: Institutum Historicum S. I., 1958; John W O’Malley, Gauvin A. Bailey and Giovanni Sale, The Jesuits and the Arts, 1540-1773, Philadelphia, PA: Saint Joseph’s University Press, 2005. For an overview, see Jeffrey Muller, “Historiography of the Art and Architecture of the Jesuits,” Jesuit Historiography Online, 2016. URL: https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/jesuit-historiography-online/historiography-of-the-art-and-architecture-of-the-jesuits-SIM_192594. Accessed 13 December 2021.

11 See, for example, Thomas Coomans, “East Meets West on the Construction Site. Churches in China, 1840s-1930s,” Construction History, vol. 33, no. 2, 2018, p. 63-84. URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/26562566. Accessed 13 December 2021; Sara Honarmand Ebrahimi, “‘Ploughing before Sowing’: Trust and the Architecture of the Church Missionary Society (CMS) Medical Missions,” Architecture and Culture, vol. 7, no. 2, 2019, p. 197-217. URL: https://doi.org/10.1080/20507828.2019.1608051; R. Po-chia Hsia, “Art and Architecture in the Jesuit China Mission: Recent Trends in Cultural Transnational Studies,” Journal of Jesuit Studies, vol. 8, no. 3, 2021, p. 490-500. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/22141332-0803P009; Jasper Ludewig, “Mapoon Mission Station and the Privatization of Public Violence. Transnational Missionary Architecture on Queensland’s Late-Nineteenth-Century Colonial Frontier,” ABE Journal, no. 17, 2020. URL: https://journals.openedition.org/abe/8032. Accessed 13 December 2021; Cesar Guillen-Nunez,The Gothic Revival and the Architecture of the ‘New’ Society of Jesus in China and Macao,” in Robert A. Maryks and Jonathan Wright (ed.), Jesuit Survival and Restoration: A Global History, 1773-1900, op. cit. (note 6), p. 278-298; Yinrui Xie and Paul Walker, “Chinese and Christian? The Architecture of West China Union University,” The Journal of Architecture, vol. 26, no. 3, 2021, p. 394-424. DOI: https://doi.org/10/1080/13602365.2021.1897030.

12 An idea initially elaborated by Mary Louise Pratt, “Arts of the Contact Zone,” Profession, 1991, p. 33-40. URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25595469. Accessed 13 December 2021.

13 See for instance Alex Bremner’s work on Anglican and other British missions (see note 9); G. A. Bremner, 2020, “A Tale of Two Churches: ‘Protestant’ Architecture and the Politics of Religion in Late Nineteenth-Century Rome,” Papers of the British School at Rome, vol. 88, 2000, p. 259-296. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0068246219000011; Idem, “Sermons in Stone: Architecture and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts within the Diocese of Gibraltar, c. 1842–1882,” in Simone Maghenzani and Stefano Villani (eds.), British Protestant Missions and the Conversion of Europe, 1600-1900, New York, NY: Routledge, 2020 (Routledge Studies in Early Modern Religious Dissents and Radicalism), p. 235–261; and Mark Crinson, Empire Building: Orientalism and Victorian Architecture, London; New York, NY: Routledge, 1996.

14 For example, Thomas Coomans, “East Meets West on the Construction Site. Churches in China, 1840s-1930s,” op. cit. (note 11); Emily Turner, “The Church Missionary Society and Architecture in the Mission Field: Evangelical Anglican Perspectives on Church Building Abroad, c. 1850-1900,” op. cit. (note 9); Yinrui Xie and Paul Walker, “Chinese and Christian? The Architecture of West China Union University,” op. cit. (note 11).

15 Michel Foucault, Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1977-78, edited by Michel Senellart [First published as Sécurité, territoire, population: cours au Collège de France, 1977-1978, Paris: Seuil; Gallimard, 2004; translated by Graham Burchell], Basingstoke; New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009 (Lectures at the Collège de France).

16 Examples of this strand include Bram Cleys and Bruno de Meulder’s work on Jesuit missions in Belgian Central Africa, and their role in the spatial planning of towns as part of a network of settlements on a regional scale. See Bram Cleys and Bruno De Meulder, “Imagining a Christian Territory: Changing Spatial Strategies in the Missionary Outposts of Scheut,” op. cit. (note 9); Bruno De Meulder, “Mavula: An African Heterotopia in Kwango, 1895-1911,” op. cit. (note 9). See also Jasper Ludewig, “Mapoon Mission Station and the Privatization of Public Violence. Transnational Missionary Architecture on Queensland’s Late-Nineteenth-Century Colonial Frontier,” op. cit. (note 11).

17 Mark Crinson, “The Powers That Be: Architectural Potency and Spatialized Power,” ABE Journal, no. 4, 2013. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/abe.3389.

18 See note 6.

19 This informal contestation and the missionaries’ role within it is the subject of a vast literature in Middle Eastern History. Some foundational studies on the subject include Dominique Chevallier, La société du Mont Liban à l’époque de la révolution industrielle en Europe, Paris: Paul Geuthner, 1971, p. 256-68; Joseph Hajjar, L’Europe et les destinées du Proche-Orient (1815-1848): unité arabe, missions chrétiennes, la question syro-palestienne et syro-libanaise, Paris: Bloud & Gay, 1970 (Bibliothèque de l’histoire de l’Église); Ussama Makdisi, The Culture of Sectarianism: Community, History, and Violence in Nineteenth-Century Ottoman Lebanon, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2000. For the role of France after 1860 see, for instance, John P. Spagnolo, France & Ottoman Lebanon, 1861-1914, London; Oxford: Ithaca Press for the Middle East Centre, St. Antony’s College Oxford, 1977.

20 For the competitive aspect of Catholic and Protestant architecture in Europe see Alex Bremner’s works, note 13. The political aspect of missionary competition in the Levant is particularly well detailed in histories of early nineteenth-century Mount Lebanon, where missionaries operated until the eruption of the Mount Lebanon Civil War of 1860; see note 19. After 1860, the number of foreign missions, increasingly focusing on educational and medical activities, rose exponentially, leading scholars to describe education as “the most contested field of cultural production” in late nineteenth-century Beirut. See Jens Hanssen, Fin de Siècle Beirut: The Making of an Ottoman Provincial Capital, op. cit. (note 8), p. 164.

21 For details of Ottoman educational reform and the reaction to missionary penetration see Selim Deringil, The Well-Protected Domains: Ideology and the Limitation of Power in the Ottoman Empire, 1876-1909, London: I.B.Tauris, 2011, especially p. 92-94; Benjamin C. Fortna, Imperial Classroom: Islam, the State, and Education in the Late Ottoman Empire, New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2002; and Selçuk A. Somel: The Modernization of Public Education in the Ottoman Empire, 1839-1908, Leiden; Boston, MA: Brill, 2001 (Ottoman Empire and its Heritage).

22 Eleanor H. Tejirian and Reeva S. Simon, Conflict, Conquest, and Conversion: Two Thousand Years of Christian Missions in the Middle East, op. cit. (note 8), p. 80-81.

23 The Maronite Church is an Eastern Syriac Catholic Church whose members follow the monk St. Maron from Syria. See Iliya F. Harik, Politics and Change in a Traditional Society: Lebanon 1711-1845, New Jersey, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1968, p. 18-19, p. 96; and Eleanor H. Tejirian and Reeva S. Simon, Conflict, Conquest, and Conversion: Two Thousand Years of Christian Missions in the Middle East, op. cit. (note 8), p. 65.

24 Endowing a land as waqf removes it from commercial circulation. For a general overview see John Robert Barnes, An Introduction to Religious Foundations in the Ottoman Empire, London; New York, NY: Brill, 1987, p. 21-49; for an overview of the Maronite waqf see Richard Van Leeuwen, “Monastic Estates and Agricultural Transformation in Mount Lebanon in the 18th Century,” International Journal of Middle East Studies, vol. 23, 1991, p. 601-617. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020743800023436.

25 The Capitulations were treaty agreements made between the Ottoman Sultan and foreign powers giving them rights and privileges in favor of their subjects residing or trading in the Ottoman dominions. The Jesuits fell under the protection of the French capitulations. See John P. Spagnolo, “Franco-British Rivalry in the Middle East and its Operation in the Lebanese Problem,” in Nadim Shehadi and Dana Haffar Mills (eds.), Lebanon: A History of Conflict and Consensus, London: Centre for Lebanese Studies: I.B. Tauris, 1988, p. 104.

26 For a detailed overview of the first years of the Mission, see Sami Kuri, S.J., Une histoire du Liban à travers les archives des Jésuites, 1816-1845, Beirut: Dar el-Machreq, 1996; Chantal Verdeil, La mission jésuite du Mont Liban et de Syrie: 1830-1864, op. cit. (note 2). For their early settlements, see Beirut (Lebanon), Archives de la Compagnie de Jésus, Folders 12-B.5: Bikfaya and 12-B.15: Ghazir.

27 Iliya F. Harik, Politics and Change in a Traditional Society: Lebanon 1711-1845, op. cit. (note 23), p. 18-19.

28 David H. Finnie, Pioneers East: The Early American Experience in the Middle East, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1966 (Harvard Middle Eastern Studies, 13), p. 126-129; John P. Spagnolo, “Franco-British Rivalry in the Middle East and its Operation in the Lebanese Problem,” op. cit. (note 25), p. 104-109.

29 For an overview of Beirut’s rise see Samir Kassir, Beirut, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2011, p. 79-89.

30 Sami Kuri, S.J., Une histoire du Liban à travers les archives des Jésuites, 1816-1845, op. cit. (note 26), p. 412.

31 Lyon (France), Archives des Œuvres Pontificales Missionnaires (OPM), Letters E05175-E05195, E-15-e Fonds Lyon; nos. 1-13, E-14, Fonds Paris.

32 For details and the background of this civil conflict, and the role of European actors in it see Leila Tarazi Fawaz, An Occasion for War: Civil Conflict in Lebanon and Damascus in 1860, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1994, p. 34-80; Caesar E. Farah, The Politics of Interventionism in Ottoman Lebanon, 1830-1861, Oxford; London; New York, NY: Centre for Lebanese Studies, 2000; Ussama Makdisi, The Culture of Sectarianism: Community, History, and Violence in Nineteenth-Century Ottoman Lebanon, op. cit. (note 19).

33 Davide Rodogno, “The ‘Principles of Humanity’ and the European Powers’ Intervention in Ottoman Lebanon and Syria in 1860-1861,” in Brendan Simms and D. J. B. Trim (eds.), Humanitarian Intervention: A History, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011, p. 174-178.

34 John P. Spagnolo, France & Ottoman Lebanon, 1861-1914, op. cit. (note 19).

35 Rafaël Herzstein, “Une réconciliation entre Paris et la Compagnie de Jésus au Levant (1875-1914): faux-fuyant ou nécessité ponctuelle?” op. cit. (note 3), p. 100.

36 Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, collection Prat IX, de Damas to Beckx, 20 February 1861, p. 953.

37 Chantal Verdeil, La mission jésuite du Mont Liban et de Syrie: 1830-1864, op. cit. (note 2), p. 143-146.

38 Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, collection Prat IX, Monnier to Lavigerie, 10 June 1864, p. 1303.

39 Monnier to Beckx, 1 November 1863, in Sami Kuri, S.J., Une histoire du Liban à travers les archives des Jésuites, 1863-1873, Beirut: Dar el-Machreq, 1996, p. 151; and Beckx to Canuti, 7 November 1863, ibid., p. 155.

40 Bruno Dumons, “Prédicateurs et directeurs spirituels des élites catholiques lyonnaises (1890-1950),” Revue historique, vol. 292, no. 1, 1994, p. 95-122. URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40955787. Accessed 13 December 2021; and Bruno Dumons, “Jésuites lyonnais et catholicisme intransigeant in Étienne Fouilloux and Bernard Hours (eds.), Les Jésuites à Lyon : XVIe-XXe siècle, Lyon: ENS Éditions, 2017 (Sociétés, Espaces, Temps), p. 131-133.

41 See a summary of Monnot’s achievements in Joseph Burnichon, La Compagnie de Jésus en France : histoire d’un siècle. 4. 1814-1914, Paris: G. Beauchesne, 1922, p. 592-594.

42 Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, collection Prat IX, Monnot to Gaillard, 1 January 1870, p. 1365

43 Thomas M. Lucas, Landmarking: City, Church & Jesuit Urban Strategy, Chicago, IL: Loyola Press, 1997, p. 22-23. See also Dana A. Freiburger, “‘To Any Degree:’ Jesuit Medical Schools in the Nineteenth-Century United States,” in Kyle B. Roberts and Stephen Schloesser, S.J., (eds.), Crossings and Dwellings, London: Brill Publishers, 2017, p. 220-255.

44 Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, collection Prat IX, Monnot to Gaillard, 21 January 1870, p. 1371.

45 Thomas M. Lucas, Landmarking: City, Church & Jesuit Urban Strategy, op. cit. (note 43), p. 3.

46 Ibid., p. 57.

47 Ibid., p. 6.

48 For details of the rise of a commercial elite see Leila Tarazi Fawaz, Merchants and Migrants in Nineteenth-Century Beirut, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983 (Harvard Middle Eastern Studies).

49 Monnot to Gaillard, 20 March 1870, in Sami Kuri, S.J., Une histoire du Liban à travers les archives des Jésuites, 1863-1873, op. cit. (note 39), p. 363.

50 Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, collection Prat IX, Monnot to Gaillard, 11 March 1870, p. 1383, 22 July 1870, p. 1391.

51 The archival documents published by Kuri include official notices sent by Monnot to the owners following the purchase. Sami Kuri, S.J., Une histoire du Liban à travers les archives des Jésuites, 1863-1873, op. cit. (note 39), p. 380-383.

52 Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, collection Prat IX, Monnot to Gaillard, 21 January 1870, p. 1371

53 Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, collection Prat IX, Monnot to Gaillard, 22 July 1870, p. 1391.

54 Monnot to Gaillard, 30 July 1870, in Sami Kuri, S.J., Une histoire du Liban à travers les archives des Jésuites, 1863-1873, op. cit. (note 39), p. 382.

55 Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, collection Prat IX, Letters, Monnot to Gaillard, 8 September 1870 to 15 November 1870, p. 1395-1405.

56 Rafaël Herzstein, “Une réconciliation entre Paris et la Compagnie de Jésus au Levant (1875-1914): faux-fuyant ou nécessité ponctuelle?,” op. cit. (note 3).

57 Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, collection Prat IX, Monnot to Gaillard, 10 December 1870, p. 1411.

58 Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, collection Prat IX, Monnot to Gaillard, 27 November 1870, p. 1409.

59 Monnot to Gaillard, 21 August 1870, in Sami Kuri, S.J., Une histoire du Liban à travers les archives des Jésuites, 1863-1873, op. cit. (note 39), p. 385.

60 The various stages of the trip and the amounts received can be recollected from the series of letters sent by Monnot and Pailloux to the Father Superior in Lyon between July 1871 and August 1873. Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, collection Prat IX, Letters, p. 1449-1567.

61 Evonne Levy, Propaganda and the Jesuit Baroque, op. cit. (note 10), p. 24-25.

62 Ibid., p. 77-78. See also Jeffrey Muller, “Historiography of the Art and Architecture of the Jesuits,” op. cit. (note 10).

63 Levy charts this influence in the building of the Church of St. Ignatius in Rome, Evonne Levy, Propaganda and the Jesuit Baroque, op. cit. (note 10), p. 101-109.

64 Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, collection Prat IX, Monnot to Gaillard, 22 August 1873, p. 1567.

65 Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, collection Prat IX, Monnot to Gaillard, 30 January 1870, p. 1379.

66 Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, collection Prat IX, Monnot to Gaillard, 18 November 1873, p. 1596. Original letter in French, states in Latin: “aedificia ad habitandum utilia, sana, fortia, non curiosa aut splendida.” The letter is partly reprinted in Sami Kuri, S.J., Une histoire du Liban à travers les archives des Jésuites, 1863-1873, op. cit. (note 39), p. 421. Translated by Kuri as: “édifices pour l’habitation, fonctionnels, sains, solides, ni recherchés ni luxueux.”

67 As described by Richard Bosel, and detailed by Evonne Levy, “Early Modern Jesuit Arts and Jesuit Visual Culture. A View from the Twenty-First Century,” Journal of Jesuit Studies, vol. 1, 2014, p. 67. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/22141332-00101005.

68 See Levy’s discussion of the Jesuit “modo nostro” as a typological, rather than a stylistic exercise. Evonne Levy, Propaganda and the Jesuit Baroque, op. cit. (note 10), p. 76-78.

69 This was the result of the Falloux laws in France, which allowed religious congregations to reopen. The scale of the new colleges still led to some tensions with the central leadership in Rome, which was hesitant due to its lack of funds and fear of renewing political tensions. John W. Padberg, Colleges in Controversy: the Jesuit Schools in France from Revival to Suppression, 1815-1880, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1969 (Harvard Historical Studies, 83), p. 81-95. The issues regarding excessive ornamentation and the attack on a “Jesuit Style” in the nineteenth century are detailed by Evonne Levy, Propaganda and the Jesuit Baroque, op. cit. (note 10), p. 30-31.

70 For details on this fragmentation, especially in educational policy see Mona Ozouf, L’École de la France: Essais sur la Révolution, l’utopie et l’enseignement, Paris: Gallimard, 1984; Idem, L’École, l’Église et la République: 1871-1914, Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 2007 (Points Histoire, 165).

71 Bruno Dumons, “Jésuites lyonnais et catholicisme intransigeant,” op. cit. (note 40), p. 131-134.

72 Pierre Moisy, Les églises des Jésuites de l’ancienne assistance de France, op. cit. (note 10), p. 45-60; See also Annie Regond, “Le frère Martellange, architecte du Collège de la Trinité,” in Étienne Fouilloux and Bernard Hours (eds.), Les Jésuites à Lyon: XVIe-XXe siècle, op. cit. (note 40), p. 37-57.

73 See Sam Jacoby, “Typal and Typological Reasoning: A Diagrammatic Practice of Architecture,” The Journal of Architecture, vol. 20, no. 6, 2015, p. 938-961. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13602365.2015.1116104.

74 Monnot to Gaillard, 21 August 1870, in Sami Kuri, S.J., Une histoire du Liban à travers les archives des Jésuites, 1863-1873, op. cit. (note 39).

75 Ibid.

76 Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, collection Prat IX, Monnot to Gaillard, 10 December 1873, p. 1593-1594.

77 Beirut (Lebanon), Archives de la Compagnie de Jésus, dossier 6-B.31, P. François X. Pailloux.

78 Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, collection Prat IX, Monnot to Gaillard, 30 January 1870, p. 1379.

79 Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, RPo 43, File 12; Sami Kuri, S.J., and Lévon NordiguianÉglise Saint-Joseph des pères Jésuites, Beirut: La Compagnie de Jésus, 2001.

80 Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, collection Prat IX, Monnot to Gaillard, 30 January 1870, p. 1379. My translation.

81 Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, collection Prat IX, Belot to Gaillard, 25 June 1875, p. 1661-62.

82 Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, collection Prat XXVI, Beckx to Monnot, 25 February 1876, p. 83.

83 Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, RPo 21, File 2, Mission de Syrie, histoire et présentation, Rapport sur les missions, présenté au Congrès de Lille, November 1881.

84 Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, RPo 21, File 1, Mission de Syrie, histoire et présentation, Les Jésuites en Syrie.

85 Beirut (Lebanon), Archives de la Compagnie de Jésus, dossier 6 B.31, P. François X. Pailloux.

86 [Feuilleton] “L’Université Saint-Joseph à Beyrouth,” Missions catholiques, vol. 8, no. 368, p. 1876.

87 J. B. Piolet, S.J., “L’Université Saint-Joseph de Beyrouth,” Revue d’Histoire des Missions, vol. 2, no. 1, 1926.

88 Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, RPo 43, File 12; Sami Kuri, S.J., and Lévon NordiguianÉglise Saint-Joseph des pères Jésuites, op. cit. (note 79).

89 Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, collection Prat IX, Belot to Gaillard, 25 June 1875, p. 1661-1662.

90 Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, collection Prat IX, Letters, p. 1641, 1649, 1680.

91 Samy Zaka, Education and Civilization in the Third Republic: The University Saint-Joseph 1875-1914, op. cit. (note 3), p. 41; see also Abdul-Karim Rafeq, “Ownership of Real Property by Foreigners in Syria, 1869 to 1873,” in Roger Owen and Martin P. Bunton, New Perspectives on Property and Land in the Middle East, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000 (Harvard Middle Eastern Monographs, 34), p.175-240.

92 Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, collection Prat IX, Rapport Annuel 1873, p. 1603.

93 Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, collection Prat IX, Monnot to Gaillard, 22 September 1874, p. 1641.

94 Ibid.

95 Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, RPo 21, File 2, Mission de Syrie, histoire et présentation, Rapport sur les missions, présenté au Congrès de Lille, November 1881.

96 Observations du Père Rubillon, 1873, p. 408-409; and Réponse de Mgr. Jacobini to Beckx, 28 June 1873, in Sami Kuri, S.J., Une histoire du Liban à travers les archives des Jésuites, 1863-1873, op. cit. (note 39), p. 417-418.

97 Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, collection Prat IX, Monnot to Beckx, 15 October 1874, p. 1680.

98 Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, collection Prat XXVI, Beckx to Monnot, 30 April 1875, p. 81; Collection Prat IX, Monnot to Beckx, 5 March 1875, p. 1649.

99 Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, RPo 43, USJ Problèmes Communs.

100 Nantes (France), Ministère des Affaires étrangères (MAEN), 166PO/E/640, Turquie: Jésuites, de Damas to Moailles, 15 June 1882.

101 Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, collection Prat XXVII, Note relative au titre d’Université, 1878, p. 23.

102 Nantes (France), Ministère des Affaires étrangères (MAEN), 92PO/A/337, Sienkiwiecz to Tissot, 12 August 1880, no. 45.

103 Frederick Cooper, Colonialism in Question: Theory, Knowledge, History, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2005, p. 109.

104 Ibid., p. 11.

105 Tom Avermaete, “The Socius of Architecture: Spatialising the Social and Socialising the Spatial,” The Journal of Architecture, vol. 23, no. 4, 2018, p. 537-542. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13602365.2018.1479353.

Haut de page

Table des illustrations

Titre Figure 1: First complex of the Université Saint-Joseph, built in 1875.
Crédits Source: Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, RPo Proche-Orient Levant Photos.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/abe/docannexe/image/12690/img-1.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 1,7M
Titre Figure 2: Bikfaya Residence, Mount Lebanon. Only the bottom part was built in 1834, the arcaded rooms above in 1841, the Church in 1850.
Crédits Source: Missions catholiques, vol. 7, no. 327, 10 September 1875.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/abe/docannexe/image/12690/img-2.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 1,5M
Titre Figure 3: The seminary in Ghazir, in an old palace of the Chehab emirs, photographed in 1880s. A silk factory (right) was purchased in 1889 and in 1892 the entire complex was reconstructed in a neoclassical style.
Crédits Source: Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, RPo Proche-Orient Levant Photos.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/abe/docannexe/image/12690/img-3.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 1,2M
Titre Figure 4: Syrian Protestant college’s buildings and site, on a promontory in the western parts of Beirut.
Crédits Source: Washington DC (USA), Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Frank and Frances Carpenter Collection, LC-USZ62-93093.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/abe/docannexe/image/12690/img-4.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 2,2M
Titre Figure 5: Sites of old residence and new college, in close proximity to the center of old Beirut and the main square.
Crédits Source: Yasmina El Chami; Overlay drawing on archival map: Plan de Beyrouth dédié à S.M.I. le Sultan Abdul Hamid II par Julius Löytved. Original map source: Paris (France), Bibliothèque nationale de France, GE D 16879.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/abe/docannexe/image/12690/img-5.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 2,8M
Titre Figure 6: Plan of the university, with central church and two wings, as completed (around 1883).
Crédits Source: Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, RPo 43, File 1, USJ Présentation.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/abe/docannexe/image/12690/img-6.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 2,9M
Titre Figure 7: The university complex as seen from the south, with the central church and chevet.
Crédits Source: Missions catholiques, vol. 8, no. 328, 27 October 1876.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/abe/docannexe/image/12690/img-7.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 4,0M
Titre Figure 8. Illustration of the university as a “model” Jesuit seminary.
Crédits Source: Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, RPo Proche Orient Levant Photos.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/abe/docannexe/image/12690/img-8.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 2,6M
Titre Figure 9: Étienne Martellange, Collège Henri IV, La Flèche, France. Plan de situation: état des constructions faites ou à prévoir, 1614.
Crédits Source: Paris (France), Bibliothèque nationale de France, M 134560.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/abe/docannexe/image/12690/img-9.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 3,6M
Titre Figure 10: North façade of the Jesuit University.
Crédits Source: Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, RPo Proche-Orient Levant Photos.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/abe/docannexe/image/12690/img-10.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 2,2M
Titre Figure 11: Church of Saint-Joseph in Beirut.
Crédits Source: Sami Kuri, S.J., and Lévon Nordiguian, Église Saint-Joseph des pères Jésuites, Beirut: La Compagnie de Jésus, 2001.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/abe/docannexe/image/12690/img-11.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 1,5M
Titre Figure 12: Saint-Marc Chapel in Lyon.
Crédits Source: J.P. Galichon, Geneawiki.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/abe/docannexe/image/12690/img-12.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 3,7M
Titre Figure 13: Horseshoe-shaped arches and colored marble at the Church of Saint-Joseph in Beirut.
Crédits Source: Sami Kuri, S.J., and Lévon Nordiguian, Église Saint-Joseph des pères Jésuites, Beirut: La Compagnie de Jésus, 2001.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/abe/docannexe/image/12690/img-13.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 1,6M
Titre Figure 14: Faculté française de médecine, complex and buildings, built in 1912.
Crédits Source: Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine), Archives françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, RPo 60 Brochures, Faculté de médecine, les nouveaux bâtiments. Beirut: Imprimerie catholique, 1913.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/abe/docannexe/image/12690/img-14.jpeg
Fichier image/jpeg, 2,0M
Haut de page

Pour citer cet article

Référence électronique

Yasmina El Chami, « A Jesuit-Lyonnais Project in Nineteenth-Century Beirut: Multiplicities of the Local and Global at the Université Saint-Joseph »ABE Journal [En ligne], 19 | 2021, mis en ligne le 31 décembre 2021, consulté le 16 avril 2024. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/abe/12690 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/abe.12690

Haut de page

Auteur

Yasmina El Chami

Lecturer in Architecture, Anglia Ruskin University, United Kingdom

Orcid ID: 0000-0002-0055-3639

Haut de page

Droits d’auteur

CC-BY-4.0

Le texte seul est utilisable sous licence CC BY 4.0. Les autres éléments (illustrations, fichiers annexes importés) sont « Tous droits réservés », sauf mention contraire.

Haut de page
Rechercher dans OpenEdition Search

Vous allez être redirigé vers OpenEdition Search