Promised Land

Once the scene of a bitter civil war, Beirut is back on the map as a tourist destination, offering fine architecture, design, fashion and food.

- Ian Phillips

The Lebanese love the slogan, ‘The phoenix always rises from the ashes’,” notes the founder of the annual Beirut Art Fair, Laure d’Hauteville. “They use it all the time.” Their capital city is a perfect and quite literal example. Torn apart and largely destroyed by the civil war, which lasted from 1975 to 1990, it is booming once again.

The Beirut skyline bristles with cranes as high rises continue to rise, offering the promise of “amazing panoramic sea-views” and “the ultimate lifestyle”. The number of projects designed by ‘starchitects’ is impressive. There is the yacht club by Steven Holl, the stylish Beirut Souks shopping mall by Rafael Moneo and Kevin Dash, and residential towers by both Norman Foster and Herzog & de Meuron. Another recent addition is the sleek seafront building in the suburb of Jal el Dib conceived by the London-based David Adjaye, which houses both a luxury shopping centre and a private exhibition space for contemporary art, the Aïshti Foundation. Among those who attended its inauguration in October 2015 were artists Maurizio Cattelan and Daniel Buren, and dealers Jay Jopling and Jeffrey Deitch. The edifice is the brainchild of one of Lebanon’s best-known entrepreneurs, Tony Salamé, whose personal collection of art is made up of more than 2000 works by the likes of Rudolf Stingel, Wade Guyton and Richard Prince. He is also busy overseeing the construction of a new department store in the downtown district, designed by Zaha Hadid before her untimely death.