History of Beirut

Supervisors:
Dr. Bachar El Amine
Dr. Antoine Aouad
Dr. Rim Mourtada
Dr. Gregory Mohsen
Index
.Beirut from Ancient to Modern: -Beirut Before Beirut .The Cosmopolitan Metropolis of The Arabs: -Bchara Al Khuri
-The Great Transformation -Beirut Airport
-The Ibrahim Pasha Era -The white Revolution
-The Roads From Damascus -Kamil Chamaoun
-The Window On Ottoman Modernity -Fouad Chehab
-Charle Al Helo
.Beirut 1800s – 1890s: - Beirut in the 1800s was within its walls -Suleiman Frangieh
-Expansion Beyond walls
-Beirut in the 1800s was within its walls
.Beirut 70s: -The removal of innocence
.The Awakening Beirut (1840-1920): -Timeline -A DIVIDED IDENTITY
-1830-1840 Beirut in the making -AN INCOMPLETE NATION
-1848 Al– Nahda (the cultural revolution) -THE WAR OF THE NEWSPAPERS
-1860 Mount Lebanon civil war -The emergence of guerrillas
-1861 A wave of modernization
-1864 Tanzimat
-1914-1920 10 day independence and the
. Beirut, O Beirut! The Civil War: -What happened during the war
French mandate -Phase 1, 1975–77
-Phase 2, 1977–82
.The Capital of the Mandate (1920-1945): -France Broadens Its Mission -Phase 3, 1977–82
-The French Beirut -Phase 4, 1984–90
-Grand-Liban and Petit Paris -End of the war
-La Belle Epoque “The good Times”
-Declaration of independence
. Beirut Now
. Genesis of Modern Architecture in
Beirut (1840-1940): -The new residential townscape consisted . References
of three housing types
-Maison Libanaise
-Different types of central bay elevations
-Non residential architecture and
urbanism
-The Second Phase of Early Modernization
-Bibliography
Beirut from Ancient to Modern
- “Do you know the Lebanon?”

I shook my head.

- “In the evenings the sky is like wine and the shadows falling across
the terraces have purple edges to them. Overhead, vines—grape and
other things with big flowers and a wonderful smell. Everything is very
still and warm and soft. It’s the kind of atmosphere in which myths are
born and the pictures in your mind’s eye seem more real than the
chair you’re sitting on. I wax lyrical, you see.”

-By Eric Ambler, Judgment on Deltchev

Beirut Before Beirut
Beirut Before Beirut
.600,000 B.C.E toward the end of the Lower Paleolithic:
- The city was an island.
.10,000 – 8,000 B.C.E: At the end of the Paleolithic:
- Many open-air settlements in the sands were identified.
.Neolithic revolution:
- Evidence of a small village on the land was found.
.4,000 – 3,000 B.C.E: Chalcolithic Age:
- Pigeon Rocks on the cliffs of Rawsheh were found.
- Cities arose on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean known as the land of Canaan.
.2,400 – 2,000 B.C.E: The Early Bronze Age:
- Canaanite were present in Beirut
- Low wall and earthenware jars were built.
- Beirut offered both a haven for seafarers on the Mediterranean side and a watering place.
Beirut Before Beirut
.2,000 – 1,777 B.C.E: The rule of the pharaohs:
- Monuments found attest to its relations with Egypt.
.1,400 – 1,300:
- Beirut, the seat of a small kingdom that was vassal to the pharaoh, found itself in a difficult situation.
.1,300 – 1,200 B.C.E: Late Bronze Age:
- Several walls, steps of a stairway between the tell and the port, parts of dwellings, and a glacis
.500 – 332 B.C.E: Iron Age:
-The arrival of the Persian Achaemenids
.200 – 100 B.C.E:
- Birūta, the Phoenician city, was taken by the Egyptian dynasty
- The city was destroyed soon afterward by the usurper Diodotus Tryphon, who set fire to it and razed
its buildings.
- The rebirth of Berytos is better attested by the prosperity of its merchants at Delos, the great
commercial center of the age.
Hellenistic vestiges uncovered near Place des Martyrs, just south of the tell.
• 100 – 6 B.C.E: The Roman Era:

- Beirut, whose new status as a colony, became

one of the major urban center of the eastern
empire.
- The founding of Berytus as the first Roman
colony in Syria.
- The model of the imperial capital was
reproduced also in the layout of the city were
colonies were laid out on the model of the
Roman camp familiar to military veterans, a
large square traversed by two main arteries, the
cardo maximus, along a north-south axis, and
the decumanus, running from east to west,
with the forum situated at the intersection of
the two.
- Its surviving elements: known by the name of
Qanatir Zubayda (the Zubayda Arches) with its
three levels of arcades carried over a distance
of 240 meters (nearly 800 feet) above the river,
the land under vines nearby, and the wines of
Berytus.
The Surviving Elements Of The Roman Era

The Zubayda Arches, vestiges of the aqueduct over the Magoras.

 Roman columns on an ancient
thoroughfare thought to have been the Roman baths discovered on the slope leading up to the Grand Sérail.
cardo maximus.
Beirut Before Beirut
• The Christian City:
- Beirut was a point of departure in its expansion and considered the Holy Land in the broad sense.
- There were no fewer than six churches in Berytus, among them one devoted to Saint Jude.
• 200 – 600 The School Of Law:
- The teaching of law in Berytus was dispensed initially in an informal setting, and that the city
attracted jurists because it was a depository for imperial constitutions, which is to say a center for the
translation of edicts into Greek and their subsequent publication.
- Berytus had been struck by an earthquake, but it recovered rapidly (Around 334).
- Minor damage in Berytus after the two earthquakes that devastated Sidon and Tyre (494 and 502).
- Beirut was at its height, in both the economic and the cultural spheres (In the middle of the sixth
century).
- The cataclysm of 551 swept away virtually the entire city.
- In 560, a great fire completed the destruction of what remained of the city and of what had been
rebuilt.
Beirut Before Beirut
• 600 – 935: In The Shadow Of Islam:
- The Persian historian al-Balādhurī contents himself in Futūh al-buldān with citing Beirut among a list
of coastal cities subjugated by Yazid ibn Abi Sufyān in the aftermath of the conquest of Damascus (In
the ninth-century).
- Many Christians were still in Beirut after the Arab conquest.
- Beirut seems to have played no role in the political life of the Islamic world until the tenth century.
- It had passed from the Umayyad to the Abbasid state without notable incident
- When the Abbasids became powerless, Beirut along with the rest of Syria fell into the lap of the
Tulunid sultanate, established at Cairo in 877, and then into that of the Ikhshidids in 935.
• 974 – 976: The Byzantine Rule:
- With the weakening of the Abbasid state, the Byzantines grew bolder and took Beirut by force
• 976 – 1,000: The Damascus Rule:
- The city was retaken by the governor of Damascus.
- The power was exercised in the name of the atabeg of Damascus by an Arab governor from the
Tanukh family.
Beirut Before Beirut
• 1,000- 1,291: A Frankish Seigneury:
- The Crusaders veered off toward the coast, where
they passed through Tripoli before reaching Beirut.
- The king of Jerusalem, Baldwin, laid siege to the
city.
- Beirut was in the hands of Jocelyn, count of
Edessa, when Salāh al-dīn al-Ayyūbī, the famous
Saladin of the literature of the Crusades, took the
city in 1187.
- Beirut fell once again under the domination of the
Crusaders (In 1197).
- The Mamluks directed the siege outside Beirut
which was ruled by the Crusaders.

The al-Umari Mosque, formerly the Church of

Saint John the Baptist during the Crusades.
Beirut Before Beirut
• 1,300 – 1,570: The Muslim Restoration:
- The Crusades were all but over in the East.
- The Mamluks were determined from the middle of the fourteenth century to reconstruct the
fortifications looking out upon the sea and to rebuild the western wall, using the vestiges of the
Crusaders’ ramparts.
- Repeated attacks against Beirut occurred.
- Beirut played a role in this fleeting conquest, not only because of its geographic situation.
- Apart from the wood that it furnished for naval construction, it also produced iron ore, indispensable
for the manufacture of armaments and war ships.
- The power of the emirs of the Gharb, still exercised in the name of the governor of Damascus,
manifested itself through the construction of palaces and baths, especially after the repair of the
seaward ramparts.
- Epidemics and famines were widespread which made Beirut a dangerous destination.
The interior of the al-Umari Mosque, whose walls, formerly decorated with frescoes, were
whitewashed after the Mamluk capture of the city.
Beirut Before Beirut Crusader, Mamluk, and
Ottoman Remains in Beirut
• 1,571 – 1,770: The Great Ottoman Market:
- The nature of Ottoman supremacy in the
Levant, which was to last four full centuries after
the victory of Sultan Salim I over the Mamluks.
- The rise of Lebanon in the Ottoman system of
provincial administration under Fakhr al-Dīn had
repercussions on the development of Beirut,
which later authors have become accustomed to
describe as the capital of a state.
- At the beginning of Ottoman rule Beirut had
been attached to the province of Damascus as
one of its ten districts.
- Beirut does not stand out in early Ottoman
history on account of a particular artisanal trade.
Also, its commercial function was limited.
Mosque of Emir Mansur Assaf (sixteenth century). Mosque of Emir Mundhir (seventeenth century).
The Greek Orthodox Cathedral of Saint George, dedicated in 1767.
Beirut Before Beirut Crusader, Mamluk, and
Ottoman Remains in Beirut
• 1,771 – 1,800: The Origin Of The Eastern Question:
- The beginning of the Ottoman retreat.
- The Russian fleet aggressively asserting itself
along the coast, particularly at Beirut, with the
aid of Greek corsairs.
- The Russian fleet attempted a first landing at
Beirut, followed by five days of violent
bombardment.
- A new round of Russian bombardment was
unleashed against Beirut, in August 1773.
- The Russians entered the city in October and
held it until February 1774.
- Jazzār succeeded at last in completely restoring
Ottoman authority in Palestine and Mount
Lebanon, and in taking Beirut back from the
Shihabs.
The port of Beirut in the early nineteenth century (after Bartlett).
The Great Transformation
The Great Transformation
• The 19th Century: Newborn Of Beirut:
- Beirut had more than one hundred thousand by the end of nineteenth century.
- In geographical extent it had grown many times over, already by fifteen times in just a quarter
century, between 1841 and 1876.
- Port traffic increased twelve-fold in fifteen years, even before the construction of the new port,
which by the beginning of the twentieth century was to account for almost a third of Syria’s total.
- A new highway had shortened the trip to Damascus from three days to thirteen hours.
- Paved streets, public squares, banks, hotels, a network of schools, two universities, hospitals,
newspapers, learned societies, political parties,… all the characteristic elements of modernity that
came into existence during this period in Beirut made its transformation.
- Modern Beirut was in large part the product of the European expansion, which, in disrupting the
stability of the Ottoman geopolitical system, brought about rapid economic development over the
entire littoral of the eastern Mediterranean.
The walls of the city in the 1820s, before it began to expand beyond them.
The Great Transformation
• 1832 - 1840: The Rebirth Of The Littoral:
- On setting foot in Bilād al-Shām in 1832, Ibrahim Pasha undertook to reform the administration
of the cities, Beirut included, under his rule and resolved to enlarge Beirut’s port.
- Beirut profited most from the economic rebirth of the coast, having become the bridgehead for
what might be called a colonial axis connecting Europe with Damascus.
- By destroying a part of the city’s walls with his guns, Commodore Charles Napier of the Royal Navy
unwittingly rendered a signal service to Beirut by opening the way for the city to expand beyond its
old boundaries.
- Within a few years the rapid growth in the number of lines serving Beirut had succeeded in giving it
the air of a familiar destination.
• 1840 - 1860: The two decades that followed Ibrahim’s ouster:
- The bloodbath of the summer of 1860 followed by several massacres triggered a large exodus of
Christians from the Mountain to Beirut.
- French protectorate arrived after hostilities had ended, the emperor’s soldiers were confined to the
outskirts of Beirut, where they occupied themselves chiefly with giving aid to refugees, without any
real military tasks apart from conducting topographical surveys of the surrounding area.
“O nature! Beauty, ineffable grace of the cities of the East built on
the shores of seas, scenes shimmering with life, spectacles of the
finest human races, of costumes, of barques and vessels passing
one another on waves of azure—how to paint the impression you
inspire in every dreamer, which yet is only the reality of a
sentiment foretold? One has already read about it in books,
admired it in pictures, especially in those old Italian paintings that
recall the era of the maritime power of the Venetians and the
Genoese; but what surprises today is finding it still so similar to
the idea that one has formed of it. . . .”

These lines quoted by Gérard de Nerval, inspired after his visit to

the port of Beirut in 1843.
Landing of the French Expeditionary Corps in Beirut, 1860. Reproduced by
permission of the Nadia Tueni Foundation.
The Great Transformation
• 1861 – 1888: Reborn of Beirut:
- A conference of the Great Powers held in Beirut in the spring 1861, with Fuad Pasha presiding, which
produced a protocol between the Ottoman Empire and five European nations (France, Great Britain,
Russia, Austria, and Prussia).
- In 1864, the dual Qaimaqamat system gave way to a new administrative arrangement that made the
entire Mountain a single autonomous district (mutasarrifiyya).
- Mount Lebanon entered upon a long period of peace and continued campaign of territorial
expansion, one of whose chief aims was the incorporation of the city of Beirut that represented its
natural commercial outlet to the world.
- The population of the metropolitan area continued to grow with the influx of a large number of
Lebanese and Syrian where by the end of the century, Beirut served as a port not only for Mount
Lebanon, but also for Damascus.
- In 1887 – 1888, the sultan had raised Beirut to the status of a vilayet, extending from Lataqiyya in the
north to Naplus in the south.
-Beirut, a city reborn in the declining years of an empire, welcomed its diversity and cultivated its
ambiguities.
The Vilayet of Beirut in 1888
The Ibrahim Pasha Era
The Ibrahim Pasha Era
• 1820 – 1832: Beirut before the arrival of Ibrahim Pasha:
- Beirut was built upon a quadrilateral site defined by the meeting of the coast with the walls of the
city. From the port to the southern gate, it extended some 625 yards, and measured 400 yards at the
point of its greatest width between the eastern and western gates.

- The French traveler Jean-Joseph-François Poujoulat once said: “I have seen nothing so bizarre,
irregular, and extraordinary as the construction of the Arab town of Beirut; the houses, built of stone,
are higher there than in any other town of Syria; archways, secret outlets, dark alleys; narrow and
winding streets inspire at first a kind of fright in the traveler who wishes to walk through the town;
each house stands as a sort of great inaccessible dungeon.”

- Blondel, noting the first transformations of the Egyptian era, preferred understatement: “The streets
nearest to the sea, inhabited almost exclusively by Europeans, consuls and merchants, are of medium
breadth. The houses that line them are not disagreeable in appearance; they are highly irregular, but
built entirely of stone. It is true that, in penetrating further, the streets become narrower and more
winding. They pass under a considerable number of low and dark archways that do not improve their
attractiveness.”
The Ibrahim Pasha Era
• 1820 – 1832: Beirut before the arrival of Ibrahim Pasha:
- Many houses there were three stories high, even four, and their massing sharpened the sense of
disorder and overcrowding, by contrast with the rest of the promontory.
- Beyond the city’s walls, cemeteries alternated with sand dunes and gardens, though scattered
groupings of houses were beginning to form. Within the enceinte, the dense concentration of
buildings was a sign of urbanism.
-Despite its modest dimensions, which made it seem more like a large market town, Beirut had many
of the characteristics of a city: besides its ramparts and Christian and Muslim houses of worship, it
had public buildings (including a seraglio), inns, two hotels for foreigners,12 and, above all, a native
population and a great variety of religious denominations.
- The wall reconstructed by Jazzār, set a bit beyond the original line of the enceinte to give defenders
greater freedom of action, represented a first extension of the city’s limits.
- Encouraged by the decline of Sidon and by the appearance in the 1820s of the first resident foreign
consuls, Beirut’s hopes of claiming a share of this trade were rewarded by the opportune emergence
of Ibrahim Pasha, which, in enabling the city to capture the better part of it, stimulated further
expansion.
The Ibrahim Pasha Era
• 1831 – 1832: The Egyptian Modernization:

- The Egyptian campaign got underway on 29 October 1831.

-Having subdued Gaza, Jaffa, and Haifa without fighting, Ibrahim Pasha laid siege to Acre on 26
November 1831.

- Meeting with no success after three months, he detached a part of his forces and marched north to
Tyre, and thence to Sidon, Beirut, Tripoli, and Lataqiyya. It was only on 27 May 1832, at the end of the
sixth month of the siege, that Acre fell.

- Ibrahim then rode on to Damascus, conquering it on 16 June 1832. By the end of July the whole of
Syria was under his control, enabling him to carry the attack forward into Anatolia, where a great
victory at Konya, on 27 December, placed him in a position to attack Istanbul itself.
The Ibrahim Pasha Era
• 1832 – 1840: The Arrival of Ibrahim Pasha:
- The city failed to capture the attention of the European visitor, except as an excuse for extolling the
virtues of travel, still less when Ibrahim Pasha arrived there in 1832 did it offer anything, apart from
its physical situation, that could have impressed someone en route to Damascus from Cairo.
-Ibrahim did not cease to closely monitor the various matters constantly brought to his attention. The
Egyptian archives bear witness to his tireless arbitration of disputes and his unflagging interest in the
smallest questions of local administration.
-Although the city’s population was well below 20,000, a council of 12 members was appointed by
Ibrahim’s order on 25 January 1834. It was unique among such bodies in upholding the principle of
sectarian representation, having both Muslim and Christian members—a sign of Beirut’s singular
denominational character as the only city on the entire coast with a large Christian community.
-The Majlis of Beirut settle commercial disputes, where the merchants were to exercise over the life of
the city for the rest of the nineteenth century, the council attested by a daily schedule of meetings,
new departments of public health and commerce were formed in addition to a police force, whose
creation signaled a new concern for public safety.
The Ibrahim Pasha Era
• 1830 – 1840: Cleaning the City:

- The city was starting from next to nothing, particular emphasis was placed on public hygiene and
development of the road network, sanitary measures were given highest priority: drainage works,
installation of water mains, and relocation of cemeteries beyond the city walls.

- While the city was paved, the advantage was taken to restore the streets to their original breadth, by
removing everything that stood in the way, such as: small shops, constructed stairways,…

- Two years later, the cleanliness of the streets recently paved by the governor Mahmud Nāmi Bey
with the work on the road system was even pursued outside the walls with the laying of cobblestones
in a street that led from the southwest corner of the wall to the new neighborhoods that had begun
to spring up on the hillside. This area, later brought within the city’s limits, was to keep the name of
Zuqaq al-Blat (Rue Pavée, in its French translation: the paved street).
The Ibrahim Pasha Era
• 1830 – 1840: The Age of Steam:
- In addition to the city proper, the government paid particular attention to the development of the
port. In 1834, the construction began on a lazaretto, a mile or two from the port. Ibrahim Pasha’s
resolve, seconded by the foreign consuls, to establish a network of quarantine centers throughout
Syria, to slow the spread of epidemics, at Cape Khodr along Saint George Bay. This area, later
incorporated into municipal Beirut, was to keep the name of Qarantina.
- The effectiveness of the quarantine benefited the economic development of Beirut, which from now
on was an obligatory port of call for ships in the eastern Mediterranean. Particular attention was also
paid to regularizing port and customs procedures, which helped to consolidate Beirut’s advantages in
seeking to capture a larger share of the trade with Europe.
- On 11 September 1840, the British navy bombarded Beirut provoking an intense panic that was
followed by the exodus of several thousand inhabitants. A few weeks later, the troops sent by the
Porte landed a few miles to the north. Thus, Ibrahim Pasha was obliged once again to contemplate
withdrawal and Beirut fall back into the Ottoman lap. By the beginning of 1841, his army had entirely
departed from Syria.
The lazaretto (in a late photograph by Louis Vignes [1831–96]).
The enceinte as it appeared before the arrival of Ibrahim Pasha.
The port of Beirut: in the foreground the fort and, to the right, the bridge connecting it
to the shore; in the background the Burj al-Kashāf.
The view of the citadel from the port, ca. 1870.
The Roads from Damascus
The Roads From Damascus

In 1850, the French writer and photographer Maxime du Camp, sketched Beirut as,

“Beirut is incomparable; not the city itself, which is pitiful and lacking in grandeur, but the
country that surrounds it, the forest of parasol pines, the roads bordered with nopals,
myrtle, and pomegranate trees in which chameleons run; the view of the Mediterranean
and the aspect of the wooded summits of the Lebanon that draw the purity of their lines on
the sky. It is a retreat made for the contemplative, for the disillusioned, for those who have
been wounded by existence; it seems to me that one can live happily there doing nothing
but looking at the mountains and the sea.”
The Roads From Damascus
• The Premier Port of Syria:
- The development of the port was under Ibrahim Pasha, when the first steamships began to bring
cargo, passengers, and mail, even if it took some time for all the effects of this change to be felt. The
revolution in maritime transport gained further impetus with the advent of iron-hull steamships
equipped with screw propellers in the 1840s and their general adoption in the next decade.
-The first steamship line to serve the Syrian ports in the 1830s and 1840s was British, soon joined by a
French line, and then an Austrian one. By 1850, British lines were the most common in the
Mediterranean; among French lines the Compagnie des Messageries Impériales (renamed
Messageries Maritimes in 1871) led the way.
-In 1842, Beirut replaced Acre as the official seat of the vilayet of Sidon, which itself had been
enlarged. The city’s promotion was nonetheless qualified by the Provincial Law of 1864, which in
redrawing administrative boundaries united the vilayets of Damascus and Sidon to form a single
province, now called Syria, with Damascus as its capital. In this new province Beirut was one of five
sanjaks, along with Acre, Tripoli, Lataqiyya, and Nablus. Just the same, the chamber of commerce
remained in Beirut.
The Roads From Damascus
• An Urban Explosion:
- Throughout the 1820s, the city’s population was still small, probably no more than 8,000 .The first
striking jump occurred in the next decade, so that by 1840 there were about 15,000 people living
there. Come the 1850s this number exceeded 40,000. The rate of increase was explosive: in only two
decades, between 1830 and 1850, it is likely that the population quadrupled.
- The pattern of growth was irregular since mortality rates had not yet been brought down. Hospital
facilities remained poor throughout Syria—indeed, nonexistent, as in Beirut until the opening of an
Ottoman military hospital in 1846.
- In 1850, during one cholera epidemic the foreign consuls intervened to remove the manure heaps
from Ras Beirut. As for the quarantine system, it could no longer assure the protection against
epidemics it was intended to provide.
- The pattern of migration reached its height in 1860 following the sectarian massacres in Mount
Lebanon and Damascus. The city was not yet prepared to absorb an influx on this scale, and many
refugees from the Mountain, crammed together in appalling conditions. However, the rise in mortality
due to such events did nothing to slow the demographic growth associated with the exodus of 1860.
The beginnings of expansion beyond the city’s walls (in a print
from the first known series of photographs of Beirut).
The Roads From Damascus
• The Effect Urban Explosion:
- As a result of the increase in population, but also of its booming economy and its new place as a
center of administration within the empire, the face of the city was palpably changing. The difficulty
had in fact been aggravated in recent years as immigration and new businesses filled up whatever
space was left in the old town, already packed with three-story houses. Fewer and fewer gardens
remained, and the city now began to take on a very dense appearance, above all in its southern part,
where commerce was chiefly concentrated.
- The openness of the residential areas that were growing up beyond them gave the city a new look.
- The bombardment of September 1840 had damaged both the walls and the towers of the port, and
destroyed the bridge that connected the towers to the shore. What is more, the old fortifications
were never rebuilt—proof that the city no longer had any use for them. New openings were made in
the wall as well with the construction of two gates, Bāb Abu al-Nasr and Bāb Idris.
The Roads From Damascus
• The Morphology of the City:
- The morphology of the city was gradually changing.
-The function and the outward appearance of houses built around an open courtyard were different.
- The buildings themselves had been enlarged in area and height by successive additions. The upper
floors—often modest in size, one or two rooms—were typically occupied by several families, while the
bottom floor was reserved for commercial use or otherwise converted into warehouse space.
- In 1853 the governor, Salim Pasha, constructed a large barracks(qichla) on Qantari Hill that seems to
have helped make the area beyond the enceinte safer. This huge compound was completed 8 years
later, in 1861, by the addition of a military hospital.
- The development of port activity and the influx of foreigners stimulated the construction of other
private facilities.
- One of the landmarks of this westward expansion was the opening in 1853 of the Antun Bey Inn. But
it was already more than a traditional inn, and more than a center of business: when the Imperial
Ottoman Bank opened a branch in Beirut in 1856, it was there that it chose to install its offices. In this
sense, the Antun Bey Inn represented a transitional stage between the old caravanserai economy of
the ports and the modern city beyond the harbor that the Beirut-Damascus road, the great public
works project of the nineteenth century, was to bring into being.
One of the first seaside hotels, on the bay of Minet al-Hosn.
The Roads From Damascus
• The Road to the Future:
- If the arrival of Ibrahim Pasha represented the first major turning point in the modern history of
Beirut, the second decisive moment indisputably occurred in the early 1860s, when the gradual
opening of a carriage road serving the hinterland of Mount Lebanon, and beyond that the Biqaa and
the Anti-Lebanon, coincided with the civil war in the Mountain and its spread toward Damascus.
- In July 1857, the Porte granted the concession for a carriage road to Perthuis, who the following year
set up a joint share company under Ottoman law, the Compagnie Impériale Ottomane de la Route
Beyrouth à Damas, having offices in Paris and Beirut.
- Construction began on 3 January 1859, and in less than a year the section of the road between the
city and the Pine Forest was completed. A few months later, however, work was interrupted by the
civil war in the [Link], on 1 January 1863, almost four years to the day after construction
began, the first convoy of merchandise arrived in Damascus, and shortly thereafter daily stagecoach
service was available along the entire road.
- The distance of 70 miles (112 kilometers) between Beirut and Damascus could now be covered in
twelve to fifteen hours, depending on the nature of the convoy, and thirteen by stagecoach.
- To meet demand, 348 horses and mules, 14 omnibuses, and 2 stagecoach. Ten relay stations
permitted rapid and regularly scheduled passenger service.
The Roads From Damascus
• The Enormous Effect on the Two Cities:
- The Beirut-Damascus road had an enormous effect on the two cities and on the whole region that
lay between them.
- Separated by less than a day’s travel from its port, Damascus was now linked to large-scale
international commerce and, as a consequence, saw its supremacy over Aleppo further strengthened.
- Zahleh, midway between the two, also benefited from the new axis of trade, which helped to
transform the fertile lands of the surrounding Biqaa Plateau into an agricultural area.
- As for Beirut itself, the road confirmed its position as the principal port of Syria.
- In 1872, the creation of the autonomous administrative district of Jerusalem furnished the occasion
for prominent citizens in Beirut to demand a similar status for themselves, much to the annoyance of
the Porte.
- In 1888, reversing its preference for a consolidated province of Syria, chiefly out of a fear of
encouraging the political demands of the Arab population, Abdülhamid created a new vilayet having
its capital at Beirut and bearing its name.
The Roads From Damascus
• A New Port:
Since 1860, plans for a new port had been under consideration but there were pressing needs that called for
immediate attention.
- The embankment in front of the old customs house, envisioned since the time of the Egyptian
occupation, was finally completed.
- A new customs house was constructed, on the same site, with room for a court dealing with trade
disputes in addition to more spacious customs sheds.
- The wharf on which the offices of the public health department stood was enlarged, and on the
renovated pier an awning now protected departing passengers against the elements.
- A docking basin for barges was also built.
- At the same time a lighthouse was erected with the help of French engineers on the cape of Ras
Beirut, at the northwestern corner of the promontory.
The Roads From Damascus
• A New Port:
- The new plans were drawn up in early 1889, and work began at once in May of the same year.
- Hampered by two bad winters and interrupted by a serious epidemic, construction was not
completed until October 1895.
- The old harbor was 150 meters long and 100 meters wide, with a depth of two meters whilw the
new harbor provided deeper anchorage (two to six meters) next to an 800-meter-long pier running
almost parallel to the coast and protected by a breakwater 350 meters long.
- The dock area covered 21 hectares with vast warehouses whose metal cladding had been designed
by Gustave Eiffel. Additional buildings were erected on land reclaimed from the sea to house
quarantine facilities, harbor police, and customs authorities.
- Later, in 1903, the new port was provided with its own railway station, which became the terminus
of the Beirut-Damascus line as well as of the railway (known by its French name, Tramway Libanais)
that since 1893 had served the northern coast as far as Maameltein, the boundary between the
former vilayets of Sidon and Tripoli.
The dedication of the harbor railway station in 1903.
The Roads From Damascus
• The Railroad:
- For Beirut, the beginning of the railroad era coincided with the construction of its new port. And in
1880s, it had become clear that the route built was no longer adequate and here comes the idea of
transforming the carriage road into a railway.
- In 1895 the year in which the new port was completed—the Beirut-Damascus line was inaugurated.
- The roughly 85 miles (140 kilometers) of track of the Beirut Damascus line, 20 of them in the form of
a cog railway that crossed Mount Lebanon at a height of 4,875 feet (1,486 meters), and then the Anti-
Lebanon could be covered in only 9 hours. In 1920, the railroad came to play a preponderant role in
the economy of Beirut.
Beirut 1800s – 1890s
Beirut in the 1800s was within its walls

Before 1840, Beirut was inside its walls, it was

formed by gathered and adjacent houses in a
narrow land with 750m long and 370m width
surrounded from its four sides by defense walls.
Several habitation types starting from the
peasant or farmer house to the Iwan house, the
arcade house, the Tuscan house, and the central
court houses, were found. The land use outside
the walls was agriculture. It was largely an
agricultural land use that had good influence in
the production of silk that began in the
seventeenth century in these garden fields.
An external video followed by this slide
 Expansion Beyond walls

Found all over Lebanon, these resplendent traditional houses

first flourished in the 19th-century Ottoman era. The central hall
house became the archetypal home of Lebanese middle-class
families. It is made up of a single block topped with a pyramidal
red-tiled roof. These homes typically have very high ceilings
designed to keep the rooms cool during Lebanon’s generous
summers months. You may also find interior arcades throughout,
adding softness to the rooms. On the outside, houses are dressed
in stone, with an ocher coating or other similar shades, and
feature the trademark three windows in the shape of arches that
welcome a world of sunshine and light to its interior. Some of
these characteristic homes are also accompanied by an elegant
wrought-iron balcony and a delicate colonnade, inspired by the
opulent Venetian palaces and Ottoman architecture.
Beirut in the 1800s was within its walls
The Awakening Beirut (1840-1920)
 Timeline

1830s 1840 1848 1860 1861 1864 1916 1920

narrow Ibrahim pasha A cultural revolution A Lebanese Civil A wave of Tanzimat reforms
Arab Revolt The French
land with 750m *370m stormed Beirut known as war broke out in modernization Mandate
width surrounded by demolishing its Al- Nahda Mount Lebanon,
defense walls walls The French
P= 8000 P=15000 entered the
country

Important reference: Ottoman reign(1299-1920) - Industrial revolution(1760-1840) - WWI(1914-1918)

1830-1840 Beirut in the making
 Historical brief
1830-1840

before
1830 1830s 1832 1841 1841 1842

Ottoman reign Emir Bashir II The Egyptian rule The Levant was A rise of internal A power force
Levant Governor on Rebellion on the regained to the conflict between The port of Beirut
( Bilad l Sham) Mount Lebanon ottoman empire by ottoman empire the religions was main trade
the egyption pasha dominating the center especially
Lead by Ibrahim area of Mount for importing
Pasha Lebanon Lebanese silk to
France
 1830-1840
Beirut in the making

The Levant - map Oil painting to show Beirut- Jules Coignet 1844
 1830-1840
Beirut in the making

• It was formed by gathered and adjacent houses in a narrow land

with 750m long and 370m width surrounded from its four sides by
defense walls built from sand stone and was supported by ruined
columns develop from the Romans and byzantine remains.
• Further than the walls there were only rural villages and many
cemeteries to burry people.
• In 1840, Ibrahim pasha destroyed the walls, Beirut witnessed
major development including its urban architectural and
management facilities.
• Public spaces were basically translated into cross alleyways, Sahat,
coffee shops where they drink coffee and shisha.
• They were unplanned spaces at that time, a public space is a place
that people make public.
 1830-1840
Beirut in the making
1848 Al– Nahda (the cultural revolution)
 1848
A L – N A H DA ( T H E C U LT U R A L R E VO LU T I O N )

• Many men contributed in the Nahda, like Naqqash, Faris

Shadyak, Nasif al Yaziji, Butrus l Bustani and many more…
• It all started with the need to spread the Arabic language among
the young, and teach them how to love their language.
• All the men of the Arabic renaissance once were subjected to the
idea of translation, especially translating the bible to Arabic, and
then many books followed.
• First started with the idea of schools other than teaching religion
only, so many schools started to seek birth starting from the
several institutions, then many followed like Al Makassad.
• Then literature followed, plays, writing novels, postcards, writing
magazines and newspapers..
• Bustani, shidyak, Al asir, and Yazigi and many more extraordinary
men, not only did they taught the Arabic but also work on
modernizing it.
• Beirut was then noticed as “The Capital of Knowledge”.
 1848( Al- Nahda)

Makased school 1870

Butrus L Bustani- Al Hadikat L Akhbar 1858- First post building in Beirut

Moaalem First Lebanese newspaper
1860 Mount Lebanon civil war
 Historical brief
1860

Full scale Civil war in Burning villages, France Intervened Immigration of Each family/
Mount Lebanon houses, the 2 Then the Emirat of several Mount religion took its
parties were seeking Mount Lebanon was Lebanon street or
help, one from directly joined to residents to neighborhood in
France, the other Damascus so Beirut Beirut
linked to Damascus ottoman can control
it
 1860
M O U N T L E BA N O N C I V I L WA R

The damage An illustration

that was caused of the
war
1861 A wave of modernization
 Historical brief
1861

1861 1861 1860s 1860 1888

Nationalist era The Creation of Period of stability A Lebanese Civil A wave of The Creation of
Lead by Youseff Bey Motsarifiyat Mount war broke out in modernization Wilayat Beirut,
karam Lebanon Mount Lebanon, because it was an
The French attraction for the
entered the Europeans and
country americans
 1860
A wave of modernization
 1860
A wave of modernization
 1860
A wave of modernization

The port of Beirut

 1860
A wave of modernization

Culture and modern dancing was seen on the streets First AUB students to graduate
1864 Tanzimat
 Historical brief
1864

1864 1888

Tanzimat Reform After Beirut Became The port played a Growth of the The new network Creation of the
a Wilaya, it was now Vital role for the city city, the souks system through idea of arab
under the Tanzimat of Beirut and the political the tramway independence
Reform for facilities
liberating the City
1864
TA N Z I M AT

• Under the rule of Jamal basha many decisions were made, first
regarding the souks, they destroyed some of the souks to acquire
ventilation to the city.
• Souks like al fashkha, jamal, tawile… they were destroyed and
replaced by 2 wide streets.
• Gradually the sahat were destroyed, and the Arabic know Beirut
city was gradually turning into a a western city, because the
Ottoman were trying to create a western like city.
• The creation of public gardens, public sahat like sahat l borej…
• And then the creation of military bases, and the new serial
facility with the clock tower.
• The creation of networking for cars and banning animals inside
the souks.
• Modernizing the port of Beirut knowing it’s a great economic
powerhouse.
 1864
Tanzimat Reform

Ain L mrayseh Street Commerce

 1864
Tanzimat Reform

Sehat L borej

Market square
Bliss street contrast
 1864
Tanzimat Reform
1914-1920 10 day independence and the French mandate
 Historical brief
1914-1920

1914 1916 1920 1922

WWI Bombing the port of 200,000 people died Arab Revolt Sykes picot The French
started Beirut which due to starvation agreement Mandate
stopped the food out of 400,000
supplies and
resources
 1918
10 day independence and the French mandate
 1918
10 day independence and the French mandate

Sehat L borej Beirut city in the 1920s

Beirut -The Capital of the Mandate-
France Broadens Its Mission
France Broadens Its Mission
• After Ottomans – Arab
government for two weeks
• Sykes-Picot
• San Remo
France Broadens Its Mission

• General Gouraud
• The Great Lebanon (1920)
• The Parisian life in Beirut
France Broadens Its Mission
• Charl Debbas – the First President of
the Lebanese republic (1926)
The French Beirut
The French City

• Urban planning
(Haussmann’s example)
• Main roads
• Transportation
• Asphalt road networks
The French City

• Urban planning
(Haussmann’s example)
• Main roads
• Transportation
• Asphalt road networks
The French City

• Place des l’Etoile (clock)

• Place des Canons (Place des Martyrs)
• Place Assour
• Place Debbas
• Bāb Idris
The French City
• Beirut’s port
• The shadow of Haifa
• Beirut’s airport
The French City
• Communication
• Hospitals
• Education
• National Museum
The French City

• Al-Balad
• Suqs
• Buildings
• Religious Buildings
The French City

• Beiruti house
• Concrete
• Uzai
The French City

• Beiruti house
• Concrete
• Uzai
The French City

• The city’s expansion

• Effect’s on the city’s Physical shape
• Effect’s on the city’s Social
equilibrium
The French City

• Refugees
• Expansion according to the
Sectarian lines
• Expansion according to the Law of
sociology
Grand-Liban and Petit Paris
Grand-Liban and Petit Paris

• Thee French Mandate intended

for Beirut to be a second Paris.
• New buildings were built on top
of the older neighborhoods
• The Lebanese upper class
adapted a French life style.
• Emergence of Salons and
“elegant” life style.
• Beirut was described as Small
Paris
Grand-Liban and Petit Paris

• Technological advancements
Paved the way for connections
with the west.
• Power plant and a tram network
were constructed for the first
time.
• Emergence of cars (6 cars at first)
• Tourism cruise Line
• Society started to change
La Belle Epoque “The good Times”
La Belle Epoque “The good Times”

• Cinemas, Radio and magazines.

• Prominence of Tourrism and an
international way of life (customs
had changed).
• Nightlife establishments :Hotels,
Restaurants ,Casinos , Bars and
even Brothels.
• Women were allowed to attend
college (for nursing).
• The Urban footprint of the city
started expanding.
Declaration of independence
Declaration of independence

• France left Lebanon after the

fight for independence, having
modeled Beirut after the image
of Paris.
• Resurgence of Arabic as the
official Language.
• Beirut became a cultural hub for
Arabian artists writers and
poets..
• Arabian publishing houses.
Genesis of Modern Architecture in Beirut (1840-1940)
The new residential townscape consisted of three
housing types

-Upper-class mansions
(foreground).
-Flat-roofed farmhouses with
surrounding gardens, referred
to as tarz al chami or
Damascene type (middle
ground).
-Cubic stone structures with
red tile roofs showing the
strong emergence of a new
building type: the bourgeois
central hall house with its triple
arch and corbelled marble
balcony (background).
Maison Libanaise
-In his “Geographie de la Syrie Centrale”, Richard
Thoumin calls this house la maison moderne
Libanaise.
-Also la maison citadine or the town house
-The spread of this new type went from Beirut to
the mountain and other coastal settlements.
-Le mouvement s’explique par une double
influence: le climat et l’Occidentalisation.
Maison Libanaise
-If the terrace was not rolled during autumn, it
was transformed into a skimmer
-The town dweller wanted a more comfortable
residence where he was protected even if he
forgot to roll his terrace
-Outside Beirut, having a house with red tile roof
was a sign of superiority
-Around 1905, migrants started coming back.
-Upon their arrival, their first concern was to build
according to the new fashion.
Materials
-The central hall house is a hybrid suburban structure resulting from the integration of :
[Link] iron I-beams and roof tiles from France
[Link] sawn timber from Romania
[Link] iron balustrades and hardware from England
[Link] tiles from Italy
5. Other than the bearing walls built from local
sandstone
-The majority of materials used are machineage construction materials imported from Europe with the
expansion of colonial trade during the second half the 19th century.
-The triple arch, the most distinguishing feature of the new type, is considered to be a Venetian import.
 Different types of central bay
elevations

The supra-vernacular The high and mainstream

elevation or kasr : vernacular elevation or hara: The lower vernacular elevation or bayt :
pertained to the to the family residence of the to the garden suburban house and to the
aristocratic mansion emerging bourgeoisie farmhouse
The aristocratic mansions

-Usually exhibited a dignified and

ostentatious raised entrance with an
elaborate staircase
-A recessed or protruding central bay,
-Highly ornate surface detailing
-Designers were mostly Italians
-Styles were an eclectic mix of Gothic,
Renaissance, and Islamic
High bourgeois and
mainstream residences

-Used ornamentation selectively

-They consisted of one to three floors
-Housing a single apartment per floor
-With separate entrance staircase for each
level
-They relied on the know how of master
builders and copied aristocratic mansions
 The flat roof suburban house and the farmhouse

-Were characterized by a simple elevation incorporating -They lacked aesthetic pretensions

-Sometimes a diagrammatic central bay -Were executed by craftsmen who followed the
-With small and unadorned window openings conventional ways of building.
Suburban residential types

Luxury and upper Extended vertically as

cost apartment highrise walk-ups
houses, or stacked
villas

Extended horizontally
as twin structures
The speculative
either separate or
apartment building
integrated under one
roof
 Non residential architecture and urbanism

-The central hall / red tile roof building was not only used in domestic architecture
-It served as a reference model for new building types such as hotels or mixeduse buildings in the
expanding Beirut’s central district
Non residential architecture and urbanism
-Accommodated the first office buildings along the waterfront and in the
port district.
-Monumental architecture of the late Ottoman period was confined to a
small number of key buildings pertaining to two broad stylistic categories:

[Link] infantry
barracks (le Grand
Serail),
[Link] 1900 clock
tower and The
Petit Serail
Non residential architecture and urbanism

Late 19th century European eclecticism as illustrated by:

-The Imperial Ottoman Bank,
-The Orosdi Bek Department store and
-The Eglise des Capucins.
Non residential architecture and urbanism
-It is clear that monumental architecture was in advance of domestic architecture in introducing the
latest stylistic trends and building materials and techniques using western and western-educated
professional designers
-Missionary schools like the Ecole des Frères du Sacré-Coeur (1894) were already built in concrete at
the end of the 19th century,
-While Orosdi Bek department store (1900) introduced the first elevator in Beirut.
-It will take around two to three decades for such trends to trickle down to mainstream domestic
architecture.
-Modern urbanism was introduced in Beirut as early as 1878, when the Municipality ratified a
project for the modernization of the infrastructure and the upgrading of public amenities following
the rules of hygiene and embellishment set by Istanbul.
Non residential architecture and urbanism

-By the first decade of the century, the

city acquired its electric factory, Its train
stationand its tramway lines.
-The old town was perceived as a barrier
to movement between the port and its
hinterland
-Two openings were cut through the old
fabric in 1915 (today’s Rue Foch and
Allenby),
-Starting the second phase of early
modernization carried through the
French Mandate
The Second Phase of Early Modernization

-The most dramatic change in the building

industry occurred during the first quarter of the
century, when cement was gradually
incorporated in domestic construction.
-Between 1923 and 1930, consumption of
imported cement increased about five times in
the Levant States of Lebanon and Syria
-Paralleled by a sharp rise in construction
permits
-The fast growth in cement imports stimulated
the creation of the first cement plant in the
region, the Société des Ciments Libanais that
was established in 1929 through a joint French /
Lebanese private venture.
The Second Phase of Early Modernization

-This change was accompanied by a theoretical knowledge of reinforced concrete

-The malleability of concrete and its predilection for imitation, was soon appropriated by the builders themselves
as a “new vernacular” tradition,
-Fostering the hybridization of architectural form and the proliferation of eclectic ornamentation.
-Concrete proved to be an economical substitute for stone dressing and carving.
-Builders started emulating stonework through casting, using pattern books and trade catalogs published in
Europe and the U.S., and spread as far as Australia.
-By looking at the variety of intermediate shapes that the central bay took in less than a decade, starting as a triple
arcade and ending as simple rectangular opening ,a clear idea may be formed about the range of styles that
pervaded central hall buildings between mid 1920s and mid 1930s.
Variety of intermediate shapes between mid 1920s and mid 1930s
The Second Phase of Early Modernization
The central bay generated two additional façade types:
-The veranda type created through the addition of a concrete veranda, which soon became the
predominant elevation feature in its own right
-The bow window type which was a European import
The Second Phase of Early Modernization

-The old fabric of Beirut’s central district was being razed,

to accommodate the Foch-Allenby and the Place de
l’Etoile scheme consisting of star-shaped and wide gallery-
lined avenues.
-A stage-set approach was adopted based on façade
competitions as models for future buildings in both areas.
-The traditional central hall plan was replaced by an efficient
office layout, while street elevations were differentiated by
diverse stylistic treatment
 Symbols of local power
-The Parliament building designed by Mardiros -The Municipality building designed by Yussef Bey
Altounian, a BeauxArts architect, was an imposing Aftimos, an American-educated engineer, is a clear
symmetrical structure with an Orientalrevivalist style expression of the Neo-Islamic style developed in
articulating historical regional references with neo- Cairo by turn-of the century Western and Western-
Mamluk overtones. educated architects.
The Cosmopolitan Metropolis of The Arabs

From 1943 to 1974

Switzerland of The East
Social Life
Economical Life
Michel Écochard
• Bchara Al Khuri
• Beirut Airport
• The white Revolution
• Kamil Chamaoun
• Fouad Chehab
• Charle Al Helo
• Suleiman Frangieh

Beirut Switzerland of The East

Bechara Al Khoury
• From 1943 to 1952
• End of the French Mandate
• The ruling political bourgeoisie
• Relatives’ employment
 Beirut Airport
• MEA /1949
• Générales des transports/1951
• Trans Mediterranean Airways/1953
• MEA absorbed Air Liban to become
Lebanon’s national airline and together
with the airport itself which remained
the chief hub of the Near East until 1975
Camille Chamoun
• From 1952 to 1958
• The most prosperous period
• Civil War
• Stop the abuse by hiring relatives
• Expanded capital gains to a wider segment of
society and supported the middle class
The Civil War 1958
• Camille Chamoun
• The American Baghdadi Alliance
• Cold War
• American interventions in the East
• Internal contradictions
• External Interventions
• Sectarian Problems
Fouad Chehab
• From 1958 to 1964
• Summoning a research mission
• The mission revealed the narrow concentration of
economic power
• A peaceful initiative to redistribute wealth and direct
growth by preparing the internal arena
• Establishing the Ministry of Planning 1963
• Modernity
Charles Al Helou
• From 1964 to 1970
• Adopted the same Chehab policy
• Intra Bank collapse
• Establishing the Social Security Corporation 1964
• Modernity
Suleiman Frangieh
• From 1970 to 1976
• Free trade without controls
• Relatives’ employment
• Close the Suez Canal
• Transit traffic doubled
• Oil boom, which increases the profits of
the banks that contain oil money
• Civil war
Economical Life
• Beirut was a meeting place for
businessmen
• The city that brings together Arab and
foreign businessman
• Hotels:
i. Phoenicia
ii. Palm Beach
iii. Vendome
iv. Koudmous
v. Carlton
• Schools were available in multiple
nationalities
• Beirut Souks
Economical Life
Social Life
• Imitation of western fashion and habits
• Influenced by Hollywood
• Changing behaviors and influencing Western
culture
• A consumer society par excellence
• Cinema
• Night life:
i. Hamra Street
ii. Phoenicia Street
Social Life
Beach & Mountain
• Beirut had a close relationship with the
beach
• Work shifts in the summer become part-
time for going to the beach
• The small area of Lebanon promoted the
culture of swimming on the beach
• The shorter distances strengthened the
relationship between the coast and the
mountain
• The mild summer climate on the rope
has boosted tourism
• Attracting Gulf tourists due to the nature
of the climate
Michel Écochard
• Expanding the city by establishing a
harmonious relationship between it and its
natural surroundings
• The development of the city revolves around
a network of major roads
• Expanding the port and establishing a new
airport
• Determine the concentration of industries,
residential neighborhoods, and urban
centers
Michel Écochard: Failure
• Not adhering to Écochard schemes
• Heavy issuance of building permits
• Realtors and real estate dealers
• No serious monitoring of construction
Beirut 70s
Beirut was not surprised, warned after the passage of the Arab
Israeli war and World War II, Beirut was unique to be completed
as a unified capital of the Republic of Lebanon.
He also led to the appearance of
policy papers, which was
constantly constrained since the
19th century through migration
streams from the outside, the
nearly, the overlap, the other
layer, divisions and fortifiers
among new settlements on old-
final sectors that have not
abandoned those who were in
front of them. Worse, this
classes have been placed in
urban scenery of social unrest
and disorders
It is appropriate to call “political sectarianism”, meaning the
rule of the societal division that governed the distribution of
government and public positions, as well as the composition
of the National Assembly. This principle also has its origins
in the prehistoric times of the Lebanese state, one of them is
according to the Basic Law of Mount Lebanon, which
established the Mutasrifiyya and was directed by an
administrative council whose seats were divided according
to the rule of sectarian representation. This principle was
later adopted by the mandate and was formally enshrined in
Article 95 of the 1926 constitution. “Although this proposal
was stipulated as temporary, in practice, in the absence of
any challenge to the sectarian system as an “indivisible
whole,” it remained in effect. In Beirut, political sectarianism
manifested itself in a formation The city council is mainly
composed of Sunni and Greek Orthodox
The removal of innocence
After a year of the Arab-Israeli war, and three days before the
acceptance of the year 1969, Israel bombed Beirut airport
known as Middle East Airlines. Through it, Beirut was stripped
of its innocence and its beautiful days. Beirut was known as the
Paris of the Middle East.
During this period, Lebanon has undergone many changes.

. A DIVIDED IDENTITY,
Lebanon did not flee from the European authorities, which for
want of a genuine consensus about national identity, the various
elements of the Lebanese polity regarded the regional and
international environment in very different ways. The principal
line of cleavage among them was to emerge with growing
disagreement over Lebanon’s proper place in the Arab world
and its position in relation to the West.
. AN INCOMPLETE NATION,
Despite the sense of solidarity that Lebanon feels, as elsewhere, in response to the escalation of the war in Palestine
and the bitterness caused by the defeat of the Arab armies in 1948, which is generally seen as a disaster, the troubling
effects of the war are:
1-The establishment of the state of Israel in the region did not hesitate until later.
2-The greed of the prime minister to take advantage of his position, by renewing his rule for another period.
3-And the entry of America, Britain, and France against the Soviet Union in a cold war affected Lebanon and Syria.
What led to the instability of the situation.
4-Palestinians enter Lebanese lands, and form Palestinian parties and camps.
. THE WAR OF THE NEWSPAPERS,

An even broader degree of freedom was allowed in the

treatment of Arab politics than in the coverage of
Lebanese news, which the newspapers of Beirut had
come to represent the free Arab press.
Thanks to the diversity of its contributors as well as the
availability, of all the human resources of the exile
community, the Beirut press transformed the Arab
republic of letters into an actor in Arab politics.
Very quickly pluralism became a weapon of combat in the
hands of governments engaged on every front of their
cold war.
. The emergence of guerrillas
In Lebanon, as in Jordan, this struggle also
benefited from the presence of a large number
of refugees and the strong support of the local
population. Since 1948, many Palestinians have
integrated into Lebanese society, and more
than a few of them have contributed
significantly to its economic prosperity. A few
thousand were naturalized even as citizens.
Many of Lebanon's prominent cultural figures
were of Palestinian origin. They passed on
many Palestinian cultures, and the Lebanese
benefited greatly from them.
This situation changed
dramatically after 1967.
Although the Israeli occupation
of the West Bank led to a
strategic imbalance, the
fedayeen became more daring
in Lebanon, which led to the
emergence of several guerrilla
wars. Which led to the
intervention of the Israeli forces
to deter the fedayeen.
Beirut, O Beirut!
The Civil War
 The dangers that flowed from confessional polarization and the proliferation of
political factions were to be dramatically highlighted in late February 1975, in the
course of what may be considered the prologue to the war.
On the evening of this day, 13 April 1975, Lebanon descended into civil war.
In early May, henceforth the line of demarcation between east
and west. If combat in the strict sense developed only gradually.
The war began as a battle of neighborhood against
neighborhood, then of city against city, and then spread
throughout the country under the influence of a viral dynamic
of proximity. Confessional polarization gave way to face-to-face
combat. The adjacent neighborhood abruptly became a terra
incognita, into which no one could venture without exposing
himself to the risk of kidnapping and murder.
Nor were its residents any longer the only threat:
major military operations in an urban environment,
exchanges of artillery fire between residential districts,
and isolated rifle fire from the “the sniper” who lay in wait on
high ground, determined to bring death at close range.
The communal geography of the
city, where many neighborhoods
had remained homogeneous,
helped to deepen the sense of
distance that increasingly divided
what was to become East Beirut
from West Beirut
The descent occurred in phases.
First phase, 1975–77
Sectarian violence and massacres

(Map showing power balance in Lebanon, 1976:

Dark Green – controlled by Syria;
Purple – controlled by Maronite groups;
Light Green – controlled by Palestinian militias)
The war was not over, however. The
assassination on 16 March 1977 of Kamal
Jumblatt, and communal antagonisms became
still more deadly. Although Beirut was pacified
for a brief time, making it possible to think
about reconstructing the destroyed downtown,
the war immediately shifted to the south,
where Israel had gotten a foothold. In
September 1977, Israel was to have still more
freedom of action. An initial invasion in March
1978 led to the enlargement of the security
zone patrolled by its local allies, now twelve
mile- wide buffer meant to protect Israeli
territory from cross-border attacks, as well as
the establishment of a United Nations Interim
Force in Lebanon (UNIFL).
Second phase, 1977–82
Hundred Days War
The tensions that had been building in East Beirut since the winter of
1978 led on to more than three months of violent clashes during the
summer, an episode known as the Battle of Ashrafiyyeh or the
Hundred Days’ War. The widening of communal cleavages continued.
Third phase, 1982–84
Israeli invasion of Lebanon

Map showing power balance in Lebanon, 1983:

Green – controlled by Syria;
Purple – controlled Maronite groups,
Yellow – controlled by Israel,
Blue – controlled by the United Nations
Fourth phase 1984–90
War of the Camps
End of The War
In March 1991, parliament passed an amnesty
law that pardoned all political crimes prior to its
enactment. In May 1991, the militias were
dissolved, and the Lebanese Armed Forces
began to slowly rebuild themselves as Lebanon's
only major non-sectarian institution.
The Lebanese civil
war (1975-1990)
divided the country
and Beirut into two
parts along religious
lines. During that
time, little planning
interventions were
conducted. This
phase is
characterized by
greater violations of
public regulations. As
a result, the area was
unplanned and the
market encourages a
total disregard to
agriculture and the
economy it generated
for the city,
neighborhood and
residents.
Scenes of the destruction
downtown, 1990.
Beirut Now
Everything has been changed on
the late 1990s.
Lot of building has re-
constructed, or a new building
has raised, especially the hotels,
for example, the Phoenicia has
reopened its doors, with its
indented façade meticulously
restored and new annexes
added, the Vendôme and the
Riviera preceded, the Martinez,
The Bristol, above Hamra,
though it was not completely
damaged during the war, has
been remodeled, the
Commodore is once again open
to welcome, and the Royal Hotel
in Dbayeh, as new building. And
a lot other...
In addition to hotel
swimming pools in
Beirut and the
seaside resorts that
have disfigured the
shoreline in Junieh, a
recent and more
welcome fashion has
revived the tradition
of sand beaches—
modernized and
upscale versions of
the old Saint-Simon
and Saint-Michel
bath clubs.
Then suddenly there
appeared two or three
top end restaurants,
the Rabelais, Al Dente,
and Mijana, and two
all-nightclubs that
were to become
legendary destinations
for postwar youth
The roads leading out
from Beirut have been
widened, except for
the Northern Highway,
and the entire
network of
expressways has been
improved, even if the
road surface is often
cracked or, because of
the low-grade asphalt
used, undulating
The new seafront district built on
land reclaimed from the sea.
Le Grand Théâtre, to be restored and remodeled to accommodate several restaurants
Pray for Beirut for Lebanon
References
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Berytus, vol. XXXV. Beirut: American University of Beirut, 1987. pp. 165-197
. Davie, Michael. "Maps and the Historical Topography of Beirut." in Berytus, vol. XXXV. Beirut:
American University of Beirut, 1987.
. Daher, Gaby. Le Beyrouth des Années 30. Beirut, 1994.
. Debbas, Fouad C. Beirut Our Memory; an Illustrated Tour in the Old City from 1880 to 1930. Paris:
Folios, 1986.
. El-Farra, Fouad. The Cement Industry in Lebanon. Master of Business Administration thesis.
Department of Business Administration, American University of Beirut, Beirut 1969.
. Rapoport, Amos. House Form and Culture. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: PrenticeHall, 1969.
. Saliba, Robert. Beirut 1920-1940. Domestic Architecture between Tradition and Modernity. The
Order of Engineers and Architects, Beirut: 1998.
. Sehnaoui, Nada. L’Occidentalisation de la Vie Quotidienne à Beyrouth: 1860-1914. Mémoire de
Maîtrise. Université de Paris X – Nanterre, Paris: 1981.
. Thoumin, Richard. Géographie Humaine de la Syire Centrale. Paris: Librairie Ernest Leroux, 1936.