The booming real estate market in Beirut is causing the rapid disappearance of the city's history, says Guardian critic Deen Sharp.
One of the few buildings left from an avant garde architecture movement in Lebanon, "The Egg" by Lebanese architect Joseph-Philippe Karam is in danger of being demolished by the wave of Dubai-like skyscraper construction across Beirut.
Sharp writes, "The Egg is at the centre of a battle over the future of Beirut and the type of city it should become. Beirut has a wonderful and prolific architectural heritage, as does Lebanon as a whole. Although the city has been plagued by successive urban planning failures, a quality urban fabric of Ottoman and French colonial-style buildings did establish itself."
Sharp warns that that history, and the modern architecture movement that followed, could soon be gone and is worthy of preservation.
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