Ottoman era
French colonial
hasty bomb repair
War aftermath. June 2019
Beirut is old. Referred to in ancient Egyptian tablets dating to 1400 BCE, the city holds one of those "longest continually inhabited places on earth" titles. On my several-day visit with WMF, we walked all over the city. The architecture was striking and so was the damage left by decades of sectarian violence. Parts of the city were partially abandoned, parts were totally rebuilt, and yet others bore the scars of hasty repairs to make buildings usable again.
The Ottomans had been in Beirut for centuries, yet not a whole lot was left from their time - at least, not obviously. The city mostly appeared to have been remade by the French during their short stay trying to recreate Nice in the Levant. The Lebanese civil war then damaged or destroyed a lot of the French colonial splendor and what remained was a hodgepodge of building styles and conditions. Walking around Beirut was walking around a city that had been through hell - its damaged buildings were a testament to its historically recent violence.
What should a city like Beirut do? First, imagine the city as the properly functioning capital of Lebanon rather than a monument to decades of conflict and what "might have been". Should the city define certain quarters as historic and renovate those buildings and then bulldoze the rest and start afresh? Ancient Beirut wants to be forward looking, but most of its buildings look like they have been frozen in time from the 1950s (and many are in poor condition). Has the place always been such a melting pot of people and religions that there can never be a unified plan? Walking around feels that way since it is a city of neighborhoods and main roads connecting them. Just walking across Beirut requires patience and a map. Once inside a neighborhood, one enters a new realm. Walking between said neighborhoods is something completely different.
The explosion of 2020 did not help much. Some historic areas were so damaged, it is unlikely they will ever be repaired. The neighborhood of Gemmayze where WMF and I stayed was completely destroyed and that was one of the few places where older buildings had been renovated and maintained. Beirut makes me think that some cities just get to the point where they need a "makeover". I can understand why some very old cities have no buildings from before a certain period. Basically, at some point everything must be torn down and the whole place started again. Although I am always pro-preservation of old buildings, I wonder if Beirut needs a bit of "bulldoze and rebuild" in order for it to return to its glory days?
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