by David Enders –For a brewery that has been closed for more than 30 years, the Grande Brasserie du Levant has received outsize attention in recent months as activists and the famous architect working on its redevelopment trade barbs over its fate. In March, demolition of the five-storey building began in order to make way for luxury apartments. Mar Mikhail, the traditionally working-class neighbourhood in east Beirut where the brewery is located, has been gentrifying for a decade. But the brewery and its striking façade, built in 1933 to produce Laziza beer, had remained a local landmark, as well as a canvas for street artists.

In April, activists from Beirut Madinati, a group that advocates for greater transparency in Lebanon’s governing institutions and sustainable urban development, convinced the city’s governor to halt the demolition after raising several concerns. Not only had the building’s facade been pulled down despite architectural renderings that suggested it would be saved and incorporated into the new structure, the activists said, but they also questioned the effect the demolition would have on the local neighbourhood and whether enough had been done to preserve the building as a historic landmark. The activists also raised concerns that sufficient safety measures had not been put in place before demolition work began. Ghassan Salameh, an activist with Beirut Madinati, said officials should have held “some sort of town hall or neighbourhood committee meeting … to tell the people what is happening, because this is a project which drastically changes the neighbourhood”. “When you bring this luxury villa project, you immediately raise the price of rents” in the area, he added. “Landlords are going to raise the rent or start kicking out tenants.”