Beirut certainly wasn’t built in a day but it has repeatedly come close to being undone in one. I first visited the Lebanese capital just before the October protests in 2019, which marked the beginning of a series of crises. The port blast of August 2020 delivered unprecedented devastation, leaving an open wound and a mark on the city’s collective memory. Today a war rages on its southern border. You can’t write about Lebanon without encountering politics and conflict but what is fascinating about Beirut is that it doesn’t hide its scars – they are folded into daily life and the city’s design scene. The city recently hosted the third edition of Interiors Lebanon and the 27th edition of Project Lebanon, a fair about construction.
While these fairs might offer a moment to come together, the resilience of the city’s architecture and design community is also baked into its built works. Take Lina Ghotmeh’s Stone Garden, a 13-storey residential and cultural tower in Beirut. Its deep, irregular openings deliberately echo bullet-pocked façades and serve as planted balconies, inviting nature in and giving the building a sense of life rising from memory. The Beit Beirut museum’s façade tells a similar story: it still bears the bullet holes and shell damage of the Civil War, preserved rather than renovated to keep memory alive. And then there are the grain silos at the port, which were gutted by the blast in 2020. Their fate is still uncertain but citizens are determined that they endure as landmarks to carry the memory forward.
Movement has always shaped the harbour city too, from its origins as a centre of trade to the waves of upheaval that followed the destruction. For those who were fortunate enough to escape, it was never about turning their backs on home. Instead they sought safe harbours abroad to support those who stayed behind. This has created a vast diaspora who carry an unwavering love for the cedar flag and a backpack full of hope for their country. Their return has made Beirut a vibrant melting pot of cultures, histories and ideas, leaving a lasting international imprint on its architectural landscape.
When I returned this summer with my Lebanese partner, I found a place that is far from frozen by grief, still alive with the very rhythm that first struck me. Shops, restaurants and hotels, such as the iconic Albergo, have weathered the storm and been meticulously restored. Around them, new spots have sprung up, buzzing with inventive energy and a refusal to stand still. The perseverance of the city’s recent design fairs is a reminder that in a world with too many fractured places and conflicts, scars are not endings but foundations for renewal, proof that a brighter future can emerge even from devastation. They create a reason to keep looking ahead.
Rebuilding Beirut: Read how Lebanon’s architects and designers followed the devastating port explosion by building better.
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