A publication by artist Lara Almarcegui focusing on the abandoned buildings in Beirut's Hotel District, located in Minet el-Hosn. This area was one of the front lines of the Lebanese Civil War in 1975, known as the "Battle of the Hotels."
The Battle of the Hotels, also known as the "Hotel Front", was one of the first battle lines of the Lebanese civil war that started in 1975 and lasted more than fifteen years. It took place in the Minet-al Hosn hotel district on the western edge of the old town. The city of Beirut experienced several real estate booms in the times that followed the reconstruction period and the intermittent political turmoil. However, many of the buildings in the Hotel district that got damaged during the war have not yet been renovated. This publi cation is an attempt to present those vacant buildings before they disappear.
Published on the occasion of the exhibition The Beirut Experience at Beirut Art Center in Beirut (12 October 19 November 2011) and at Villa Bernasconi in Lancy / Geneva (20 April 10 June 2012).
Lara Almarcegui (born 1972 in Zaragoza, Spain) has built up an artistic practice around exploring the material aspects of land and urban space. She has worked in different cities, identifying abandoned, unused, or forgotten sites and examining the contemporary transformation processes brought about by social, political, and economic change. At a time of widespread urban renewal in Europe, Almarcegui has created guides to wastelands in the cities she has worked in, sometimes even instigating their legal protection. Almarcegui has also turned her attention to construction sites, in particular the composite materials used in the construction of new buildings and the cyclical relationship between land and architecture.
