The coast of progress

As activists push ahead with a lawsuit to prevent the development of nearly 110,000 square meters of coastal land to the south of Beirut’s iconic Pigeon Rocks, Fahd Hariri — the son of late Prime Minister Rafic Hariri who has a stake in an investment company which indirectly owns some of the land — is shopping around for ideas on what to do with it. In mid December, the Civil Campaign for the Protection of the Dalieh of Beirut — using the locally known name of the land — published an open letter to architect Rem Koolhaas whose company, the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), they alleged had “been commissioned to develop a design for a projected development” on the land. The letter reiterated the activists’ arguments that the land — while privately owned since Ottoman times — has been used as a public space for generations and should remain