The Egg (Beirut)

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"The Egg" (2018)

An unfinished cinema and office building in downtown Beirut is called The Egg or The Dome . Construction on the complex designed by Joseph Philippe Karam began in 1965 but was interrupted and not completed by the Lebanese Civil War.

The spherical or egg-shaped construction of the performance hall that contributed to the nickname "The Egg"

history

In the 1960s, Joseph Philippe Karam began planning a cinema and office complex on Beirut Märtyrerplatz , which was to be named “Beirut City Center”. Karam, one of the leading Lebanese architects of modernism, also designed numerous other buildings at the time.

The Lebanese civil war, which began in 1975, interrupted construction work. At that time, large parts of the shell, including the performance hall and an office tower, had already been completed. In the course of the war, the office tower was destroyed and only the foundations, including the egg-shaped cinema, remained. After the end of the civil war in 1990, there were repeated debates about the demolition of the ruins in the course of the rebuilding of the Beirut city center, but numerous initiatives resisted it, but various ideas for conversion were never implemented.

As part of the protests in Lebanon 2019 , which also had the aim of upgrading and gentrification processes in Beirut, protesters are using the ruins for events, including readings, discussions and techno parties.

Web links

Commons : The Egg, Beirut  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Failed Architecture: The Value of a War-Scarred Ruin in Beirut. In: Failed Architecture. Retrieved November 2, 2019 .
  2. ↑ Protests bring Beirut's abandoned Egg back to life . In: Reuters . October 31, 2019 ( reuters.com [accessed November 2, 2019]).

Coordinates: 33 ° 53 ′ 37 ″  N , 35 ° 30 ′ 22 ″  E