Rebuilding Destroyed Cities

The few citizens who stayed behind after the Spanish-mandated evacuation set out to build a new Antigua that would sit harmoniously within the city's historical ruins. In 1979 the city was awarded UNESCO World Heritage status and is now a popular destination for tourists.

An earthquake on the morning of Nov. 1, 1755, triggered massive tsunamis and fires that ravaged the city of Lisbon. The quake had a profound effect on Portugal, causing significant political strife and squelching its colonial ambitions.

Out of the rubble, Lisbon was rebuilt with wider, more modern streets and avenues. In a strikingly contemporary gesture, the ruins of the Carmo Convent were kept as a memorial to the tragedy, with the new city built around it.

The coastal city of Saint-Pierre was destroyed on May 8, 1902, when the Mount Pelee volcano erupted, killing more than 30,000 people -- nearly the total population of the town.

At the time of the 1902 disaster, Saint-Pierre was Martinique's largest city and economic hub, trafficking in sugar production and rum. Owing in large part to the city's geographical location and volcanic volatility, the rebuilding of Saint-Pierre has been limited, and many ruins remain. Today the city boasts a modest population of about 5,000 citizens and operates primarily as an off-the-beaten-path tourist destination.

The 1906 San Francisco earthquake remains one of the most legendary moments in the history of California -- a state that has seen more than its share of strong quakes. Most of the city's damage was caused by fires sparked by ruptured gas lines that burned out of control for days. News of the disaster spread quickly; within weeks, hundreds of thousands of dollars had been donated from around the world to the city's relief effort.

Like Lisbon, San Francisco saw the disaster as an opportunity to reorganize itself, widening many streets and constructing a subway under Market Street. By 1915, the golden city was nearly 100% rebuilt, and that year it hosted the Panama-Pacific Exposition, above. While the expo was meant to showcase the city's rebirth, the fair is perhaps best remembered for the introduction to the transcontinental telephone line that gave people in New York the chance to hear the hush of the Pacific. In present-day San Francisco, there are no great monuments to the 1906 disaster. Instead, the city is littered with the ornate palaces and conservatories built in 1915 to trumpet the city's resilience.

The casualty estimates of the 8.3-magnitude quake that flattened Tokyo and the port city of Yokohama in the fall of 1923 range from approximately 100,000 to 142,000 people. Much of the damage to the city's structures resulted from typhoon-fueled firestorms that raged in the wake of the disaster. Widespread misinformation about the cause of the catastrophic fires lead to murderous anti-Korean mob violence.

Following the devastation of the earthquake, a reconstruction plan for Tokyo was drawn up that included a modern network of trains, roads and parks. As in many other capital cities ravaged by natural disasters, the tragedy triggered a discussion about relocating the the seat of government, but the idea was dismissed once rebuilding got under way. The start of WW II, however, put many of the reconstruction projects on hold, and the areas of the city that had been rebuilt were subjected to devastating Allied air strikes throughout the war. A park memorializing the 1923 quake was constructed on the site where 30,000 people died in a firestorm. The park is host to many small memorials, including one for the Korean victims of the disaster-instigated vigilante killings and one honoring the citizens killed during the Tokyo air raids.

Berlin's 200-year history as a capital city has been fraught with war and rebuilding. Toward the end of WW II, British air strikes pummeled the city, while Soviet ground troops further damaged the capital's historic buildings with rocket launchers and hand grenades.

Rebuilding a war-torn city is a far more delicate matter than responding to the damage caused by a natural disaster. In the case of Berlin in particular, politics and national character were pushed to the forefront as the city was transformed into a symbol of the postwar divide between East and West. Once Germany was reunited in 1989, Berlin resumed its place as the capital, while its rebuilding efforts have become a study in the politics of balancing architecture, memorial and memory.

The complexity of reimagining the German capital is exemplified by the controversy surrounding the rebuilding of the Hohenzollern Stadtschloss, a palace in the center of the city closely associated with the country's Prussian past. Hated by the communists and severely damaged during the war, the original building was torn down during the Soviet era. Constructed in its place was the Palace of the Republic, a bronze-and-steel triumph of boxy 1970s Soviet design. In 2003 the German government voted to tear down that building and replace it with an exact faux-Baroque copy of the Stadtschloss, a decision that has been regarded by some as a bulldozing of the past, a form of architectural forgetfulness that is frowned upon by many urban planners, historians and critics.

On Monday, Aug. 6, 1945, at 8:15 a.m., the nuclear bomb "Little Boy" was dropped on Hiroshima, instantly killing 80,000 people and flattening the city. A little more than one month later, a devastating typhoon hit the area, wiping out what few roads and bridges were still in operation and killing more than 3,000 people.

Similar to some German cities' postwar reconstruction efforts, Hiroshima has used modern architecture to communicate the politics and narrative of its people. While most of the city was rebuilt with a modern lilt, the Hiroshima Commercial Exhibition Hall, severely damaged in the bombing, was kept as a memorial to the war. Commonly referred to as the A-bomb Dome, the building sits at the tip of Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, a sprawling area of green grass, community centers and various monuments. It is a tranquil respite in the center of the city, dedicated to the legacy of the atomic bomb, the memory of war and the hope for peace.

During the Bosnian war, a 1993 siege on the city of Mostar resulted in the total destruction of the the city's many historical buildings and bridges. When the war finally came to an end two years later, the city, once a cradle of classic 16th century architecture, lay in ruins, pockmarked and shattered from years of heavy artillery shelling. The city's ancient bridge, Stari Most, a 427-year-old structure that had given Mostar its name ("the bridge keepers"), had been completely destroyed.

The destruction of Stari Most was considered to be a tremendous cultural loss, and its rebuilding became a global cause. Organizations like UNESCO and the World Bank donated funding for the bridge's reconstruction. The new bridge, a direct copy of the original, was opened in 2004. In an effort not to lose the memory of the '93 bombings, stone plaques carved with the words "Never Forget" are embedded in walls and roads around the city. In the shadow of the new bridge, these words are a stark reminder of Bosnia's recent bloodshed.

It is estimated that during the 15-year civil war that ravaged Lebanon, 100,000 people were killed and another 100,000 critically wounded. Much of the infrastructure of Beirut, the capital city, was destroyed in the fighting, its city streets lined with countless scarred and hollowed buildings.

A hotbed of intellectual and cultural activity as well as a major tourist destination before the war, Beirut since the 1990s has been steadily repairing its reputation and architecture. Much of the early rebuilding was handled by Solidere, a Lebanese stock company founded by then Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. Though Lebanon has remained politically volatile in the 20 years since its civil war, Beirut has regained much of its prewar luster. In 2009 the city was a frequent feature in the New York Times travel section and topped its year-end list of the best places to visit.

Category 3 Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast in August 2005, causing significant damage to New Orleans' infrastructure. Subsequent flooding devastated the city. In the weeks following the storm, large swaths of New Orleans remained underwater, and as the national and local governance scrambled to help the drowning city, many wondered how it would recover from the disaster.

After five years of desperation and stalemated efforts, there are fewer FEMA trailers in storm-damaged lots then there once were, but New Orleans continues to struggle to rebuild, a situation exacerbated by the 2008 economic downturn. In 2009, frustrated by the leaden pace of rebuilding, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan told the residents of New Orleans that he was "angry" and "personally disturbed."

January's massive earthquake in Haiti devastated its capital city. With most of its basic infrastructure flattened and the majority of its citizens living in temporary housing and tents, Port-au-Prince is beginning to think about how it will rebuild itself.

Rebuilding Haiti will not be easy, nor will it happen quickly, but some urban planners have suggested that there may be a silver lining in the city's destruction. As with so many places that have been gutted by natural disasters, the earthquake in Haiti may give the nation the opportunity to construct a new capital that is stronger, healthier and more resilient. Tomorrow's Port-au-Prince could have the soul of the past and the structure of the future.

The world was still reeling from the tragedy in Haiti when news broke of an 8.8-magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami in Chile. While the South American quake was many times stronger than the one that devastated Haiti in January, its death toll so far has been significantly lower. Chile's major cities have experienced considerable damage, and many villages struck by the massive tsunami have all but disappeared. Only time will tell how they will recover and what the rebuilt nation will look like.