Stepping up efforts to save Beirut’s walkways

Ambling along the narrow streets of Beirut’s Mar Mikhael and Geitawi neighborhoods on a balmy morning, master’s students from Balamand University’s Academie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts lead groups of design enthusiasts on a heritage-esque tour of the areas’ famous stairs.

One guide tells stories of the family who built the well-known Vendome Stairs – named after a long-gone theater at their base – and another recounts tales told by residents about a large stone in the middle of a flight north of Roum Hospital. The story goes that a drunken man comes every night to try to move it to the top but to no avail.

From secret steps tucked into the entrances of old buildings to short, wide flights shaded by webs of cables and serving as the only outlets for some apartments, the stairs are a defining feature of the capital’s hilly eastern areas.

The guided stroll, led by students Honeine Laeticia, Kallab Cyril, Salamoun Elias and Rouhana Joyce, and their instructor Diala Lteif, was intended to raise awareness of the imminent threat to the steps created by a slew of new developments.

“The main problem is a lack of preservation. None of the buildings along the tour or in that neighborhood are classified as heritage sites by the government,” said Lteif, who taught a semester-long course focusing on the stairs as part of ALBA’s new global design program.

Letif added that the students had conducted onsite research by interviewing residents in preparation for the tours, which were part of last week’s Beirut Design Week and were accompanied by an open workshop to brainstorm ways to protect the neighborhoods’ traditional character.

“In the program at ALBA, we look at design as a process to solve a problem … and the users [of the design] are the main focus,” she explained. “Since we are contextually embedded in the city around us, it made sense for us to look at the design problems we face in the city.”

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Stepping up efforts to save Beirut’s walkways