The national museum, which houses a vast collection of statues and antiquities Greek, roman, and phoenician, has escaped the worst.
It is not only the future of Beirut, which is clouded with the explosion of the port. The drama deadly and devastating did not spare what was left of the glorious past of the lebanese capital, striking museums and historic houses with traditional architecture.
View of the port of Beirut on August 5, 2020, in the aftermath of the explosions that devastated the area.
AFP
Coup de grace
Famous for their windows with triple arches, typical of Beirut, hundreds of architectural gems dating back to the ottoman empire or the French mandate (1920-1943) were already the ravages of time. After having been weakened during the civil war (1975-1990), the explosion of Tuesday, equivalent to an earthquake of 3.3 on the Richter scale, has been the coup de grace.
The damage to the church of Saint Antoine, near the port of Beirut, the hazards
JOSEPH EID / AFP
Some of the older buildings are, in fact, near the port, where several tons of nitrate of ammonium, which is stored according to the authorities since six in a warehouse, exploded. In a palace of the Eighteenth century, the blast has destroyed antiquities older than Lebanon, which marks this year the centenary of its founding.
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In the patrician house decorated with colonnades of marble, the doors were ripped up and wood panels from the ottoman era, with Arabic calligraphy damaged. Stained-glass windows broken, old more than 200 years, have been swept into a corner. “It’s like a rape,” says Tania Ingea, the heiress of this house, formerly known under the name of “Palace of the Residence.” Built by one of the great fortunes beyroutines, the Sursock family, the palace has survived the civil war and the destructive war of 2006 between Hezbollah and Israel.
With the explosion, “there is now a break between the present and the past,” says Tania Ingea. “It is an interruption in the transmission of the memory of a place, a family, a part of the history of the city.”
The gaping holes
proximity to the Sursock museum, high place of the cultural life, which houses an impressive collection of modern and contemporary art, has not been spared. There are only a few months ago, he was hosting a Picasso exhibition new.
Photo provided by the Sursock museum in Beirut showing the hall devastated by the explosion at the port on August 8, 2020
afp.com/-
jute bags filled with debris piled up in the courtyard, at the foot of the monumental staircase of honour where the newlyweds came to have their photo taken, in front of the facade of chiselled white and the stained-glass windows. The famous stained-glass windows were shattered and the windows are nothing more than gaping holes.
The palace built in 1912, jewel of venetian architecture, and ottoman, is now a museum and nearly 50 years later, as was its owner Nicholas Sursock, an avid collector. Between 20 and 30 works have been damaged, mainly by shards of glass, according to a spokesman.
Among them a centerpiece of the collection : a portrait of Sursock painted by the Franco-Dutch Kees Van Dongen. The explosion brought down the table, slashing the canvas.
The table damaged the portrait of Nicholas Sursock by Kees Van Dongen
SURSOCK MUSEUM / AFP
The museum re-opened in 2015 after eight years of renovations. Jacques Aboukhaled, the architect who directed the work, ensures that the structure is intact, even if the rest has been blown. “I was not expecting as much damage (…) I am very attached to this building. It is like our house,” says the sexagenarian. According to him, the repairs may last longer than one year and a cost of “millions” of dollars.
work “before the”winter”
A miracle, however. The national museum – which houses a vast collection of statues and antiquities Greek, roman, and phoenician – has escaped the worst. Only the outer facade is damaged, according to the minister of the Culture, Abbas Mortada.
Located on the former demarcation line during the civil war, the building of the neo-hellenistic had found himself trapped in the midst of fighting.
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The main parts of the museum had been saved from looting, thanks to the foresight of former curator, Maurice Chehab, who was cast in concrete. Today “hundreds” of heritage-listed buildings national are damaged, assures the minister. “It’s going to require a lot of work.”
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Ae team conducts a census of the damage but the repairs are going to cost “hundreds of millions” of dollars, believes Abbas Mortada, hoping for external assistance, including Paris. “We need to conduct renovation work as quickly as possible,” he says. “If the winter is coming and that this is not done, the danger will be great.”
