Beirut styles

Beirut, Lebanon, Sept. 2018.

Beirut styles

Beirut’s history is inscribed on its walls. Just as churches nestle next to mosques, the different architectural styles cohabit. On this photo taken last weekend, let’s admire, on the right, the style of Herzog & de Meuron who so elegantly blend structure and varying shifts, openings with intimacy, shadow with light through their ingenious perforations in the overhangs thus modulating the amount of sunlight within. On the left, the Fatah and pro-Syrian style. Their perforations of another type remind us that Lebanon, although deserving of the best, was and still often is victim of the worst.