according to fellow facebook group Save Beirut Heritage:
“Demolished on Friday 20th of May 2011, at 6am.
Plot 1132 – Classified B – Declassified by Majliss Shoura el Dawleh –
On the highway from Hamra to Achrafieh (Fouad Chehab – Burj El Ghazal), on the right hand side. After the Bachoura cemetery and before burj al ghazal. Right facing the Markazia Monroe Suites, on the other… side of the highway.
One of the most beautiful houses of Beirut is now gone.”
there are barely 200 traditional houses left in Beirut out of the 1450 in the first post-war census provided by APSAD. houses rated A and B are not to be touched except to be restored. not demolished. this house was destroyed in the first hours of morning while still
in near pristine shape.
we want to thank the lebanese owners of such houses and the municipality of beirut for their zealous endeavor to erase the true face of the lebanese capital. we wish to thank the lebanese government for ever postponing the implementation of the law to protect traditional houses/edifices and culturally relevant structures in lebanon and we want to thank influencial developers who build shamelessly upon the ruins of old beirut that are being discovered whenever new building foundations are excavated.
in short, since it seems beirut is in such good hands, we would like to wish it a swift and painless death (by concrete-induced suffocation).
