BEAUTY BY DESIGN

After decades of war and political turmoil, Beirut’s artists and makers continue to produce boundary-pushing works as the city rebuilds. GISELA WILLIAMS visits Arthaus, an innovative hotel that offers guests access to Lebanon’s irrepressible creative scene.

- GISELA WILLIAMS

THE CITIES THAT most enchant me wear their histories on their sleeves. I once visited a fashionable boutique in a hidden courtyard in Berlin, its facade pockmarked with bullet holes from World War II. In Jerusalem, I had an epic multi-course meal at a throbbing cafe with all-white decor, then ended the night watching black-clad pilgrims rock back and forth in front of the Wailing Wall. It was an exhilarating and disquieting experience, like finding a portal that could transport me between centuries.

This fascination with places where the past rubs provocatively against the present is the reason I couldn’t wait to see Beirut, an ancient port city that has survived centuries of violent conflict and destruction. I was told that it was a place where you might walk by a sleek Japanese-inspired bar on your way to an 18th-century villa built on top of Roman baths.

When I finally got the chance to visit in January of last year, I decided that not even the ongoing protests were going to get in my way. Lebanon’s most recent revolution was ignited in October 2019 by wildfires that burned thousands of acres of trees—a catastrophe many Lebanese felt the government did next to nothing to stop—as well as a new tax on platforms like WhatsApp, FaceTime, and Skype. But the unrest had been brewing for years, born out of multiple government corruption scandals and the gradual breakdown of basic infrastructure.