Beirut: A Glory Of Ashes After The Eighth Destruction
After the catastrophic explosion of 4 August 2020, we return to Fairuz's lament for a city destroyed eight times over, and ask how much more Beirut and its people must endure.
Philippe Jabre has Built One of the Single Most Significant Collections of Orientalist Art in the World
Philippe Jabre’s imposing art collection will soon have a new home in the mountains above Beirut. Gaby Daher and Jean-Louis Mainguy, art dealer and interior architect, are remodelling Jabre’s summer residence, a 19th century traditional Lebanese house, and adjacent bell foundry in Beit …
Level 26 at The Four Seasons Hotel Beirut Has Been Transformed into a Year-Round Rooftop
The Four Seasons Hotel Beirut has a new rooftop playground. The best part is it’s open year round, so you can keep that summer feeling going even when the clouds roll in. Just because autumn is rolling in doesn’t mean you have to concede summer’s over. The pool, bar and lounge ato…
Le Vendôme, Beirut: the discreet seafront hideaway where privacy still reigns
A time-honoured boutique hotel tucked between the Phoenicia and a new tower, Beirut's Le Vendôme trades flashy design for European chic, hush-hush service and the rare luxury of genuine seclusion.
Stay With It: Beirut's Phoenicia Hotel And A Golden-Era Glamour
Dating only to 1961, the Phoenicia nonetheless brims with history, an enduring symbol of Lebanon's jet-set prewar years, all gilded grandeur, sweeping staircases and palatial pillars that still enchant guests today.
Culture Shock: A Sunken Well Anchors the New Beirut Museum of Art
Beirut's name is thought to derive from be'erot, meaning wells, a nod to the fertility of its water table. Fittingly, a sunken well lies at the heart of the winning design for the Beirut Museum of Art.
Art to Heart: Beirut Art Fair and Lebanon's Enduring Artistic Pulse
Caught between transformation and disintegration, Lebanon still nurtures the Middle East's most developed artistic community, and the Beirut Art Fair is where its galleries, institutions and rising talents converge each year.
Why We Love the Phoenicia, Beirut's Legendary Hotel Since 1961
A Beirut institution that has hosted kings, queens and film stars, survived the civil war and political turmoil, and lives on as a temple to art, cognac and old-world glamour.
Art to Art: Seo Young Deok Steals the Show at Opera Gallery Beirut
On Opera Gallery's opening night in Beirut, it was neither the pre-Cubist Picasso nor the early Dali that captivated. The real star was Korean artist Seo Young Deok's terrace sculpture, 'Meditation 16'.
Taking a Stand: A Live Sheep Steals the Beirut Art Fair
On the opening night of the Beirut Art Fair, a live sheep named Faro, shorn and inscribed with a mysterious pattern of black dots, wandered among the elegant crowd as the show's improbable centrepiece.
Blending In: Inside Beirut's Sursock Tower and the Firm Behind It
High in Sursock Tower, an eighteen-floor Ashrafieh high-rise designed by the late Pierre Khoury, our writer meets its makers. The firm of Jamil Saab kept several floors of the building to serve as their corporate headquarters.
Master of Colour: Nabil Nahas Returns to His Native Lebanon
In 2010, painter Nabil Nahas marked forty years of creativity with a retrospective at the Beirut Exhibition Centre. Remarkably, it was the prolific artist's first show at home, ending an eighteen-year absence from his country of birth.
Building Up to Something: Zaha Hadid's Bold Architectural Vision for Lebanon
Zaha Hadid's Issam Fares Institute transports our writer to another time, recalling a first visit to Tripoli's unfinished Rashid Karami Fair, where Oscar Niemeyer's monumental concrete forms still rise from a landscaped garden, abandoned before civil war.
State Of The Art: A Hypnotic Stage Where Slow Processions Unfold
Velvet curtains part on a stage where schoolchildren, ballet dancers, a funeral march and a runaway bride drift past in exaggerated slow motion, set to melancholic classical music amid baroque, hypnotic splendour.
Lords Of The Dance: Inside Lebanon's Grand Caracalla Dance Theatre
Step inside Caracalla and you enter a world of grand columns, ornate frescoes and velveteen diwans, at once ancient and Oriental. Everyone here moves with a dancer's gait, in hushed, international seriousness.
Transcending Trouble: A New Chapter For The Beirut Art Fair
The fourth edition of the region's first art fair returns to Beirut from 19 to 23 September, hosting 40 galleries from more than 15 countries. Director Laure d'Hauteville reflects on fifteen years of building a scene.
Past Present: Olivier Gougeon and Marie-Hélène Mouawad Revive Old Beirut at Villa Clara
In creating Villa Clara, husband-and-wife team Olivier Gougeon and Marie-Hélène Mouawad have not only brought a little of old Beirut back to life, they have turned it into a delicious taste of the times.
A Cut Above: Joey Ghazal's Upscale Steakhouse Lands at Beirut's Zaitunay Bay
The man who made Beirut love the BRGR returns with an upscale steakhouse, complete with shellfish bar and an Al Capone-esque cigar lounge, at the heart of the city's glittering new seafront development.
Visceral Impact: Herzog & De Meuron Reshape The Beirut Skyline
Pritzker-winning Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron have designed perhaps the most arresting addition to Beirut's skyline in decades. A building is a building, Jacques Herzog tells Bespoke; it cannot be read like a book.
Soul Sisters
Mention Beirut to any international traveller and two iconic, luxurious and pioneering hotels immediately come to mind. And while Le Vendôme and the Phoenicia have many things in common, they’re just as unlike each other. No question, they are an ideal pair.
A Storied Address: The History of Beirut's Phoenicia Hotel
The Phoenicia Hotel was a dream for Najib Salha – a prominent Lebanese businessman – who in the year 1953, during Lebanon’s Golden Era, envisioned to build a world class hotel on the shores of Beirut. With a group of investors, Mr. Salha founded “La Société des Grands Hotels du Liban” and
Increasing the gallery count
Makram Kadi and his partner Ziad Jamaleddine are breathing life into the reclaimed land off the coast of Beirut’s Central District (known as Downtown), and providing artists much-needed space to showcase their work near the city centre. The two Lebanese architects recently completed the Be
Tall storeys
Against a backdrop of an international financial crisis that has seen the number of transactions and demand for realty drop by as much as 50 per cent in some of the region’s capitals, Beirut continues to show its strength and resilience. Bespoke took the opportunity to talk candidly with o
Individual soul
In the midst of rapidly developing downtown Beirut a thing of true sophistication and style has appeared. Le Gray, the city’s latest boutique luxury hotel, is set to spearhead a wave of more refined Middle Eastern 5-star hotels.
Latest craze
If cooking styles were a piece of women’s clothing, Richard Mebkhout’s culinary approach and finesse would be the quintessential little black dress. Always classy, elegant and never out of style, we challenged him to devise an up-to-the-minute meal of raw food, and he effortlessly came up
Natural choice
What Souk el Tayeb Creator Kamal Mouzawak What An organic produce market Why Healthy options and a respect for local traditions and farmers bring a fresh outlook to organic eating www.soukeltayeb.com In a day and age where ‘going green’ has become the latest trend, eating organic is the ho
Fine Dining
What Chez Jean-Claude Where Rue Gabriel Khabbaz, Achrafieh, Beirut, Lebanon Since October 2009 Why A charming, intimate and utterly authentic French dining experience that has considerably raised the bar. Honestly, new restaurants bore me probably because they’re rarely new. Inside you wil
Nuptial Dreams: The Hunt for Beirut's Finest Wedding Planner
Section: escape / wedding planning Nuptial dreams With Beirut overshadowing all other cities as the wedding destination of choice for Middle Eastern couples, it is imperative to know just who is the best Lebanese wedding planner. To make things really interesting the editorial team at Besp
Raging against the machine
Artist, air brusher and tattooist Hady Beydoun has made a name for himself with his extraordinary designs, and unbounded imagination.
Cultural Stairway
Gemmayzeh may be well known for its hundreds of restaurants and pubs, but this old Beirut neighbourhood has commendably held on to its cultural identity despite the rapid popularisation of its main artery, Gouraud Street.
Sculpting Space
As both an architect and an interior designer Galal Mahmoud has a distinct edge over his competition. Sara Hamzeh meets with head of GM Architects, to acquire some insight into his world of blueprints.
Rolling Dice
The tables have turned. Once controversial, backgammon now sits at the heart of Arab culture. Andrea Stanton reveals the secret behind this everlasting game.
A Woman’s Touch
There is very little that separates civilizations in the world of design. And no one has found harmony between the minimalist Far East and the self-indulgent Middle East as well as Lebanese-born Nada Debs. Rouba Mourtada speaks to designer about her vision and her craft.
City Escapes – Living It Up
When it comes to good living while you’re away from home, there is only one way to go: up. Bespoke has selected the most exclusive penthouses in some of the world’s most exciting cities for business and pleasure.