书名：Robert Polidori: Hotel Petra / 罗伯特?波利多里：佩特拉酒店

作者：Robert Polidori

出版：Steidl，2016年

装帧：精装，96页

语种：英文

尺寸：29*34 cm

《贝鲁特佩特拉酒店》是罗伯特·波利多里为这座已拆除建筑留下的影像档案，记录了贝鲁特战前历史的重要标志。

佩特拉酒店曾是最负盛名的贝鲁特酒店之一，坐拥市中心毗邻大剧院的黄金位置。1975-1990年黎巴嫩内战后，拉菲克·哈里里成立Solidere控股公司，旨在对贝鲁特市中心进行选择性拆建。酒店自1992年被列入待修复名单后，便彻底隔绝了人类活动的侵扰。

在建筑被封存近二十年的2010年，波利多里获准进入这片时空胶囊。他为所见景象深深震撼："如此完整保存的衰变样本实在罕见——通常人流往来会破坏这种多层油漆构成的脆弱生态系统。我将这些墙体视为缓慢衰变的生命过程，其最终效果恰与当代抽象画家的艺术追求相映成趣......区别在于，这些斑驳并非刻意创作，而是不同时期的工匠因各种理由修补墙面形成的累积效应。我为其美丽折服，决定为后世记录这些即将消失的痕迹。"

This book is Robert Poldori’s portrait of the interiors of the now demolished Hotel Petra in Beirut, a grand icon of the city’s pre-warhistory.

The Hotel Petra was once one of the most popular hotels in Beirut, conveniently located in the city center adjacent to the Grand Theatre. After the Lebanese Civil War of 1975–90, Rafi q al-Haririfounded a holding company, Solidere, whose goal was the selective demolition and reconstruction of downtown Beirut’s urban fabric. In 1992 the Hotel Petra was set aside for later restoration, and from that moment essentially cut off from any human intervention.

Polidori gained access to this site in 2010, almost twenty years after its mothballing, and was transfixed by what he discovered: “It’s truly rare to find examples of such undisturbed decomposition,” he explains. “Usually the normal wear and tear of human traffic would violate and destroy the surfaces of such a delicate ecosystem of layered paint. I came to view these walls as a living process of slow decay whose end effect closely resembled the concerns of many contemporary abstract painters … only in this case their genesis was not fixed or intentional, but the gradual summation of several painters and workmen modifying the wall surfaces at different points in time for a range of reasons. I was quite taken by their beauty and was moved to photograph them for posterity.”