A century of monuments, memories and change : Beirut's urban heritage and the politics of transformation

This paper examines Beirut’s urban evolution through the lens of key legal frameworks and political decisions that have driven its major transformations. Tracing its urban and architectural evolution from Ottoman modernization to French colonial planning, civil war fragmentation, post-war neoliberal reconstructions, and the aftermath of crisis, the study unpacks the layered politics that have defined Beirut’s physical and symbolic landscapes. Rather than treating these moments as isolated disruptions, the paper considers them as part of an ongoing negotiation between destruction and reinvention. Focusing on architecture as both a product and a witness of these shifts, the paper highlights how physical heritage—buildings, materials, urban layouts—has been carried across eras, creating a city marked by layering, rupture, and coexistence. Beirut’s heritage is approached not as a fixed aesthetic or curated timeline, but as an active, contested process—one embedded in its contradictions, its fractures, and its persistent refusal to settle into a singular narrative. In doing so, the study reframes the notion of urban heritage in contexts of instability, asking what it means to preserve memory in a city constantly being reimagined. It argues that Beirut’s most enduring heritage lies not only in its structures, but in the enduring capacity of its people to reshape, reinterpret, and inhabit the city anew.