Green Square

Green Square, Tripoli, Libya. google maps

At the time the google satellite took the picture of Green Square in Tripoli, this week the site of an emergent genocide, it was used as a parking lot.  it is across the street from a vast museum and archaeology complex, on the other side, to the south east is an immense stretch of parks and squares.  Directly south and south west is a bit of city – shops and offices, directly north a large pond, a divided highway and the Mediterranean with a built up edge – all gardens and plaza.

Green Square isn't a place of compression, it leaks all over into adjacent flat spaces.  One can read urban patterns only so far.  Tripoli has an unused traffic circle, it has larger open spaces, it has spaces adjacent to more powerful government buildings than the National Museum, so why Green Square?

Ah, on a tourist site I find (from 2009):  'The square is one of the most important celebration places in Libya.  Muammar Kaddafi addresses his speeches to the nation from here on the most important days such as 1st September Revolution anniversary. . .. Traffic circles the square and it is full of speeding cars day and night.'

So it has been made a potent urban site by association with the reiterated revolutionary origins of Gaddafi who came to power in 1969 with a coup against King Idris.  He was 27, Gaddafi was.