Abstract:
The reconstruction of Beirut, which has been largely focused on the center of the city, is a matter on which a lot of ink has been spilled. Politicians, urban planners, architects and citizens, have been engaged in this battle, which appears for now to have subsided amidst the apparent return to life of the city centre which has assumed a new role as an entertainment hub for the country and the region. Yet despite all this, the reconstruction has been a controversial project, since it is still perceived by many as a radical usurpation of public space for the profit of a private corporation, Solidere, set up in the early 1990’s to manage the large reconstruction task. One of the reasons behind this controversy is that this process has been intimately tied to the political ambitions of one major protagonist, Rafic El-Hariri, who has occupied the post of Prime Minister of the government during the last decade. Beyond the legality of the project, the more important issue of the political fallouts of the reconstruction remains an open question.
