Under the wrecking ball

0 ut with old, in with the new. This has been the philosophy in Beirut for over 50 years and nowhere has it been applied more ruthlessly than in real estate. Knocking down an old twostory house and replacing it with a multifloor residential tower is considered progress – and a potentially great way to make a bundle of money. It’s no surprise then that, when the ministry of culture in I 996 forbade the demolition of 1,100 of Beirut’s oldest buildings and then attempted to pass a law to preserve them, landowners and developers cried murder. A few weeks ago, their protests paid off. In a letter to the municipality of Beirut, Mohammed Youssef Beydoun, the minister of culture, released a number of protected buildings, built during the Ottoman and French mandate eras, from the preservation decree. Later, according to Mona Hallak of the association pour la protection des