Photo by: AFP PHOTO/ JOSEPH BARRAK

"Now everyone is looking for towers, because they realise that above the tenth floor you can see the sea," says Mona Hallak, an architect and an activist with the Association for the Protection of Sites and Old Buildings. "In 20 years' time, this won't be the case because you will have lots of towers everywhere." As a result, landlords are rushing to take advantage of the high prices now being offered for the land on which their ancestral homes are sitting. The pattern is set: the home is demolished, its traditional garden destroyed and the land sold and developed. "Every time an old house goes, a green pocket goes and with it go trees that are often hundreds of years old," says Hallak. "It's not only the house. It's the tree. It's the bird that follows the tree. It's the quality of life." The only law on the books that protects old homes in Lebanon dates back to 1933 when the country was under French mandate. It mainly protects buildings constructed before 1700 although younger buildings can be placed on the list of protected sites either by government directive or private initiative. "The law basically focuses on the protection of archaeology and antiquities," Culture Minister Tarek Mitri told AFP. A survey commissioned by the government in 1997 identified about 250 buildings in Beirut that cannot be demolished. "The list is outdated now," Mitri said. "Plus it was done hastily. Some buildings that should be on it aren't." The list is of little consolation to activists like Hallak, who say the issue is more about preserving the country's heritage than merely saving a building or a mansion.

"It's important to save an entire street, what we call a cluster... there is a social structure that is completely tied to these buildings," Hallak says. "We need a modern law that will allow us the flexibility to preserve these buildings." The relatively new and trendy Saifi village in downtown Beirut is made up of urban-style apartment buildings painted in pastel colours constructed with the flare of old Beirut. "It simulates an old lifestyle. But when you go there... it is empty. The shops are trendy. You won't find the interaction of a real old city," says Hallak. Traditional Beirut neighbourhoods tended to have a local market, butcher, bakery and shops that made hand-made goods. Most of those neighbourhoods are gone.