So “the Egg” is going to be demolished soon and a lot of bloggers seem to be pretty annoyed by this piece of news. To be honest, I think it should be destroyed for many reasons:
1- The building is very ugly and there’s nothing artistic about it, at least in my opinion. I don’t know why they even kept it while reconstructing Beirut in the 1990s.
2- Not every building that’s 50 years old and survived the war should be restored and preserved. Mustapha shares this thought with me.
Even though it’s a bit unrelated, there’s an important point needed to be said that the responsibility for restoring old houses or monuments should be on the Beirut municipality while in reality old houses owners are the ones baring all the expenses and unable to sell them because it’s part of the heritage.
Who gives a damn about heritage if it’s costing him all his money and the authorities don’t want to pay a penny?
For those of you who do not know about the Egg or Beirut City Center, it was designed by by Joseph Phillipe Karam, a prominent modernist Lebanese architect of the 60s to be a state of the art cinema in downtown Beirut.
Having said all that, I just read on the Daily Star that Solidere denied plans for taking down the Egg. Maybe it’s another rumor spread like the one about Messi being involved in a car accident.
Obviously the Egg is ugly in its current state, but its architecture is unique and could be restored to look really nice.
Example:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/20695488/The-Shell-of-the-City-Center-Complex-in-Downtown-Beirut
It is a historic monument and even in this ugly state it is a reminder of the war.
I think it should be renovated and made into something cultural like Beit Beirut ( http://www.beitbeirut.org/ ).
keep just restore
solidere already said that the egg won’t be demolished and that all the rumors are completely false. Apparently they plan on fixing it up and get it functional again.
Hi.
I served in Lebanon in the 1980’s and in 1995 with the Irish Battalion UNIFIL. While touring Beirut in ’95 and came across the ‘Egg’ but never found out about the history of the building. Could you point me to where I can locate the history of the ‘Egg’.
Thank you.
Kind regards.
Ger Cosgrove