Rebuilding Beirut to preserve its heritage
Architects and NGOs are deploying efforts to restore the traditional buildings of Beirut that were heavily damaged in the devastating explosion that rocked the capital Aug. 4.
The explosion at Beirut’s port on Aug. 4 killed nearly 200 people and injured some 6,500. It also left around 300,000 people displaced as their houses were heavily damaged or completely destroyed.
Among the neighborhoods hit by the blast, Mar Mikhael, Gemmayzeh, Karantina and Downtown Beirut are the most heavily damaged.
The World Bank calculated that the housing and cultural damage would be between $3.8 billion to $4.6 billion in its report published in August.
Thousands of damaged buildings are part of Beirut’s heritage, which includes traditional houses, villas, churches, museums and other historical buildings dating back to the 19th-century Ottoman period, and buildings from the modern period of the 1930s. All those buildings represent the legacy of the history and culture of Beirut.
