Fixed Geography, Fixed Imagery

When somebody mentions kung fu, certain images tend to surface immediately: stylized combat, disciplined bodies, animal forms, highly codified movement. The geography feels just as fixed — Hong Kong, southern China, temple courtyards, misty mountains.

The genre also carries a strong association with the 1990s, when films starring Jet Li, Jackie Chan, and Donnie Yen circulated widely, establishing a visual language that traveled far beyond its points of origin.

A Kung Fu Plot in a Post-War Landscape

Lebanon rarely figures into that picture. And yet, in the mid-1990s, a kung fu action film was shot there. It moved through Beirut, along the coast, and staged its final confrontation among the Roman ruins of Baalbek. The film was called Operation Golden Phoenix.

The premise follows familiar genre logic. A set of sacred medallions, scattered across borders, promises access to hidden riches. Rival figures pursue them through a sequence of confrontations that move between Beirut, Toronto, and back again, with shifting alliances and predictable violence along the way. What distinguishes the film is not the story, but the environment in which it unfolds.

Shot only a few years after the end of the civil war, Lebanon appears as a place still visibly unsettled. Urban spaces remain unfinished, coastlines exposed, and signs of damage linger in the background. These conditions are never addressed by the film. The camera moves through them without comment, treating them as ordinary.

Genre Logic, Local Friction

The film leans heavily on genre convention, with broad characterization and simplified cultural references. Certain scenes linger less because of their narrative importance than because of their odd specificity — a holding cell improbably large enough for extended choreography, a professor translating ancient inscriptions under inexplicable circumstances. And then there is Baalbek.

Before it’s all over, we get the inevitable final showdown, staged among the Roman ruins, in what clearly echoes the Bruce Lee–Chuck Norris fight in The Way of the Dragon. Columns loom, stone fills the frame, and the film leans fully into spectacle.

An Artifact of a Moment

What matters more, though, isn’t whether the homage works, it is the fact that this film exists at all.

Operation Golden Phoenix is a small artifact of a particular moment in Lebanon’s history. In the 1990s, the country was emerging from war and absorbing almost anything that passed through it — foreign productions, imported tapes, borrowed genres, half-finished ideas. For a brief moment, Hong Kong–style martial arts choreography unfolded among post-war rubble and Roman columns, the camera moving as if this unlikely setting required no explanation.

In Season 54 of Sesame Street, Yasmine, a Lebanese-American character, stepped onto children’s television’s most famous block and quietly made history. In Episode 5402, she taught Grover how her family makes “khebez” — the Arabic word for bread. She later returned in Episode 5509, continuing to weave her heritage into the fabric of the show. At first glance, it was a simple cooking lesson. A fleeting segment, easily overlooked. Yet within it lived centuries of culture.

Bread as Memory, Bread as Homeland

In Lebanon and the Levant, bread is never just bread. Khebez — the round, soft flatbread known in English as pita — anchors daily life. It wraps zaatar sandwiches before school, cradles falafel pulled from hot oil, scoops hummus at the family table, and accompanies lentil soup in Ramadan. It is torn, rarely cut. Shared, never individualized. In many homes, if it falls to the floor, it is lifted and kissed — a gesture of gratitude for what sustains.

By bringing khebez to Sesame Street, Yasmine normalized the Arab kitchen within the American childhood imagination. In a media landscape where Arab identities are often politicized or flattened, a child joyfully explaining how she bakes bread with her family offers another narrative: warmth, continuity, belonging.

Food is among the most durable forms of cultural memory. For Lebanese families across the diaspora — in Detroit, Montreal, Sydney, São Paulo, and across West Africa — bread-making is not simply culinary practice but ritual remembrance. It carries the scent of Beirut kitchens and mountain villages. It carries the rhythm of dough stretched into circles before puffing in a scorching oven. Yasmine’s lesson was not just instructional, it was ancestral.

Ancient Loaf

Flatbread predates written history. In the Levant, bread-making stretches back thousands of years, shaped by civilizations that moved through the region — Phoenician, Roman, Byzantine, Arab. Lebanon’s khebez belongs to a broader Eastern Mediterranean family of pocketed breads, baked at high heat so steam forms its characteristic hollow center.

Traditionally, it was made in communal ovens — the furn — where women gathered with trays of dough, exchanging news as they waited. Bread as sustenance, but also social architecture.

In rural areas, the convex saj produced thinner breads like markouk. In cities, thicker khebez was stacked in bakeries and carried home under the arm. Affordable and universal, it crossed class lines. In Arabic, to “eat bread and salt” with someone signifies trust. Bread is covenant.

Representation in the Everyday

Since 1969, Sesame Street has taught letters and numbers alongside empathy and diversity. Yasmine’s appearance fits that mission, but it also meets a particular moment. Arab identities in Western media have often been filtered through geopolitics. Here, a Lebanese-American child appeared not as headline or stereotype, but simply as herself — excited to share bread. Representation matters most when it feels ordinary.

Diasporic Threads

Lebanon’s history is marked by migration. Waves of emigration have created one of the world’s most far-reaching diasporas. In that dispersal, food becomes anchor — a portable homeland.

A recipe requires no passport. Dough can be kneaded in Brooklyn as easily as in Beirut. Flour, water, yeast, salt — universal ingredients. Yet the gestures, the technique, the pronunciation of its name carry lineage.

When Yasmine teaches Grover to make khebez, she embodies a hyphenated identity that does not divide but expands. Lebanese-American can mean fully both.

Small Circle, Wide Reach

A round of bread is modest in size. Its symbolic reach is not. It connects ancient ovens to modern studios. Beirut to New York. Grandparents to grandchildren. Memory to modernity.

When Yasmine spoke about khebez, she was not just describing a recipe. She was extending a lineage thousands of years old, carried forward in flour and fire. Cultural heritage does not survive only in monuments or manuscripts. It lives at the table, in the hands that knead, in the stories children tell about what their families cook, and sometimes, it lives on Sesame Street.

On a warm Sunday afternoon in June 1964, hundreds of people pressed against the edge of Beirut International Airport’s runway, straining for a glimpse of an aircraft that wasn’t even scheduled to stay. Some clutched vinyl records, others scraps of paper. One even wore a mop-top wig. At a moment when Beatlemania was sweeping the globe, Lebanon found itself hosting unexpected guests — The Beatles. Though they never performed in the country, their brief refueling stop in Beirut left a small yet memorable imprint.

A One-Hour Stop That Drew Hundreds

On Sunday, June 7, 1964, The Beatles’ aircraft landed at Beirut International Airport for a quick refueling stop as the group traveled from Europe to Hong Kong. The band was in the middle of a 27-day tour spanning Denmark, the Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand, and the Far East.

News of their arrival spread quickly. More than four hundred fans — Lebanese and expatriates — gathered at the airport, turning an ordinary logistical stop into a spontaneous celebration. Many brought posters and vinyl records; some held out scraps of paper hoping for autographs. The crowd’s excitement spilled onto the runway, to the point where police reportedly deployed fire-fighting foam across the runway in an improvised attempt to hold back a crowd that had spilled beyond the terminal.

Initially, the band hesitated to leave the plane, but eventually appeared at the top of the stairs to wave to the crowd. Silent footage from the stop shows fans rushing toward the aircraft and a young Paul McCartney leaning down to shake hands with those who managed to get close.

The stop was brief, but it did not go unnoticed. Beirut newspapers the following day treated the arrival as both curiosity and spectacle, noting the crowd it drew and the unusual disruption of an otherwise routine airport stop.

Long after the airport crowd dispersed, the band’s presence lingered in record shops, living rooms, and car stereos across the city.

Local Pressings, Lasting Presence

In the years that followed, The Beatles’ presence in Lebanon continued in quieter ways. By the late 1960s, their records were being manufactured locally.

Even into the 1990s, Lebanese listeners could buy Beatles music produced for the local market. A compilation cassette manufactured in 1996 is one example of how their catalogue remained part of the musical landscape.

These releases weren’t novelties or imports — they were produced locally for a listening public that labels and distributors knew existed.

Echoes Across the City

Traces of The Beatles still surface across Beirut today. In Mar Mikhael, a public house named Abbey Road references the band’s famous album cover.

In Achrafieh, their name appears in graffiti on a traditional Lebanese home, blending global pop culture with vernacular architecture.

Beirut and The Beatles

In the end, the story is less about The Beatles than about Beirut. The airport stop was brief, unplanned, and unremarkable on paper — but the response it drew, and the traces it left behind, reveal a city deeply connected to the wider world.

It’s Spring 1969, in Beirut, Lebanon. Charles Helou is president, Apollo 9 is in space, and the Rahbani brothers and Fairuz are soon to release ‘Jibal As-Sawan.’

At this time, the world of horology was also witnessing an important release. On March 3, 1969, five press conferences were held — in Geneva, New York, Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Beirut — to unveil what would become one of the most celebrated achievements in watchmaking history: one of the world’s first automatic chronographs.

This feat was claimed by several watch companies at the time including Zenith (the El Primero), Seiko (the Calibre 6139), and the joint venture of Heuer, Breitling, Hamilton-Buren, and Dubois-Dépraz (the Caliber 11). This article won’t take a position on who really was the first but will focus on the release of the Caliber 11, a modular automatic chronograph movement nicknamed the ‘Chronomatic’.

The Race for the Automatic Chronograph

The earliest wrist chronographs emerged in the early 20th century, powered by hand-wound movements. However, the concept of a self-winding chronograph was long considered out of reach. Time-only mechanical watches could be automatic, using the motion of the wearer’s wrist to wind the mainspring, while manual chronographs could measure elapsed time with split-second precision — but the combination of the two still eluded engineers.

In 1966, a secret collaboration between four major Swiss watchmakers set out to tackle this challenge. The goal was ambitious: design a compact, reliable automatic movement with a chronograph module, and bring it to market before any competitors. By March 1969, the solution — the Calibre 11 — was ready for the world. It featured:

• Automatic winding through a micro-rotor, keeping the movement powered by the wearer’s motion.

• Chronograph functionality for timing events with split-second precision.

• Innovative modular construction, allowing the chronograph mechanism to be attached to a base automatic movement.

A distinctive “left crown” design on many models, signaling the new technology.

The unveiling was not just a technical achievement; it was a carefully orchestrated marketing coup. The simultaneous, multi-city launch emphasized the movement’s global significance and positioned the Chrono-Matic as a milestone of modern watchmaking.

Beirut: The Forgotten Launch City

While Geneva, New York, and Hong Kong were natural choices for international press, Beirut’s inclusion speaks volumes about the city’s prominence in the 1960s. Its cosmopolitan nature and role as a regional trade hub made it a strategic venue. The event itself brought together journalists, dealers, and collectors who had never before seen a fully automatic chronograph in action.

The Beirut launch also highlighted the Swiss consortium’s global vision: the movement was not only for Western markets but designed to appeal to collectors across continents. Beirut was a symbol of this international ambition, representing the Eastern gateway for European luxury horology.

The Legacy of the Chrono-Matic

The 1969 multi-city debut of the Chrono-Matic Calibre 11 set a precedent in both engineering and marketing. Technically, it proved that self-winding chronographs were feasible and reliable, paving the way for future innovations. Commercially, the Beirut launch demonstrated the importance of international exposure, even in cities often overlooked by mainstream histories of watchmaking.

Today, collectors and historians alike celebrate the Calibre 11 not just for its mechanical ingenuity, but for the story behind its launch — a story that spans continents, from Geneva to Beirut, New York to Hong Kong. Beirut’s March 3, 1969 event remains a testament to the city’s prominence, its connection to global luxury markets, and its role in one of horology’s defining moments.

(So, Who Actually Won the Race?)

Zenith’s automatic chronograph, the El Primero — Spanish for “the first,” was the first to be revealed publicly, introduced at a press conference in January 1969. But the story isn’t that simple. To complicate matters further, the El Primero wasn’t the first model to reach the market. Debate continues over which company truly created the first automatic chronograph, since both Seiko and the Chronomatic consortium announced their own versions later that same year.

In the end, though, the question of who came first has faded in importance. What truly matters is the lasting influence these pioneering movements had on watchmaking history — and Beirut’s role in cementing the automatic chronograph as one of the most celebrated horological complications ever made.

A formal proposal has been submitted to the United States Postal Service (USPS) requesting the issuance of a commemorative stamp in honor of Ameen Rihani, the Lebanese-American writer, thinker, and diplomat widely regarded as a foundational figure in Arab-American literature.

The proposal, submitted by Ralph Hage, highlights Rihani’s pioneering role as a cultural bridge between East and West. As one of the first Arab authors to write in English and to gain literary recognition in the West, Rihani’s contributions laid the groundwork for generations of Arab-American voices. His 1911 novel The Book of Khalid is considered the first English-language novel by an Arab-American and remains a seminal text in diasporic literature.

The proposed stamp would serve not only as a tribute to Rihani’s literary and intellectual legacy but also as a recognition of the deep and enduring contributions of Arab Americans to the cultural and civic fabric of the United States. It would further spotlight Lebanon’s cultural heritage and the long-standing relationship between the Lebanese diaspora and American society.

Stamp proposals are reviewed by the USPS Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee, and the process typically takes several years. Updates will be shared publicly if the proposal advances to further stages of consideration.

In April of 1959, the Lebanese capital of Beirut welcomed a musical legend whose visit would resonate for decades. Louis Armstrong, the renowned trumpeter and vocalist known worldwide as “Satchmo,” brought his distinctive brand of jazz to a city eager for cultural connections. More than just a concert tour, Armstrong’s time in Beirut represented a meaningful exchange between East and West during a transformative era in global politics and music.

Beirut – A Cultural Hub

Beirut, in the 1950s, was experiencing a golden age. Renowned for its vibrant arts scene, unique architecture, and unrivaled nightlife, the city was becoming a hub for international culture. When news broke that Louis Armstrong would perform there, it created a stir in the local music scene.

Upon his arrival at Beirut Airport with his wife Lucille and his All-Stars band, Armstrong was greeted with great fanfare. The media had been abuzz for weeks leading up to the event, and by the time the concerts began at the UNESCO Palace, every ticket had been snapped up. From April 6 to 9, sold-out crowds witnessed what would become one of the most unforgettable series of live jazz performances in Lebanon’s history.

Jazz Messengers

Though the U.S. State Department didn’t officially organize Armstrong’s tour through the Middle East, it aligned with America’s broader use of jazz as a form of international outreach during the Cold War. The U.S. government had been sending jazz musicians overseas as cultural ambassadors, promoting values like freedom of expression and diversity through music.

Armstrong had a nuanced relationship with these efforts. A few years earlier, he had refused to participate in a State Department tour in protest of segregation and racial injustice back home. By the time he visited Beirut, he was touring independently, but his presence alone carried powerful symbolism—particularly in a region often skeptical of U.S. foreign policy. For many Lebanese, seeing a Black American artist of Armstrong’s stature perform live was an eye-opening experience. It presented a different image of America than what was typically portrayed in politics or media, and it helped bridge cultural gaps that other mediums could not.

Performances That Dazzled a Nation

Each evening at the UNESCO Palace, Armstrong and his band delivered a high-energy mix of jazz classics and popular standards. Songs like “All Of Me,” “Mack the Knife,” and “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love” filled the auditorium, with audiences responding enthusiastically – by clapping in rhythm, dancing in the aisles, and calling for encores.

Armstrong’s trumpet solos dazzled, but many of those who attended said it was his stage presence – his warmth, humor, and obvious love for the music – that made the experience especially memorable.

Offstage Encounters and Local Life

Armstrong and Lucille didn’t just perform and retreat to their hotel. They immersed themselves in the city’s culture. They visited local markets, including the lively Souk al-Tawileh in Beirut, where Lucille reportedly shopped for souvenirs. Their hosts recalled how approachable and kind the couple were, enjoying Beirut’s hospitality with genuine appreciation.

Cecile Geammal, then a key figure in Lebanon’s jazz community, later described Armstrong as gracious and grounded. The way he and Lucille interacted with locals – laughing, sharing meals, exploring the city – demonstrated that they saw this trip as more than a tour; it was a chance to connect.

One especially telling moment came when Armstrong was asked about the political sensitivities of performing in different parts of the Middle East. He replied with a simple, poignant truth: “That horn ain’t prejudiced. A note’s a note in any language.”

Turbulence in the Background

While Beirut embraced Armstrong with open arms, not every part of the region welcomed him as warmly. In Egypt, certain publications accused him of being involved in espionage – an accusation that had no basis. These claims reflected the political tensions of the time and the suspicion often directed at high-profile Western visitors.

Armstrong, however, paid little attention to the noise. His focus remained on sharing his music.

A Legacy That Still Echoes

When Armstrong left Lebanon, he didn’t just leave behind a few concert posters and press clippings. His visit helped establish jazz as a serious art form in the region and planted seeds for Lebanon’s cultural scene to grow.

Even decades later, his time in Beirut remains a cherished memory for those who were there and a cultural milestone for the city. His performances are remembered not just for their brilliance but for what they represented: hope, joy, and the power of music to connect people across borders, backgrounds, and beliefs.

One great example of that was Armstrong’s message to the Lebanese people over the radio upon arriving at Beirut Airport. In that famous gravelly voice, he spoke in Arabic and said:

انا مبسوط كثير اكون في لبنان!

Listen to it here.

Let’s imagine it’s 1929 in Beirut for a moment. Amidst the city’s dusty, unpaved streets and horse-drawn carriages, you’ve caught glimpses of the Ford Model T around town. Its long, boxy form is unlike anything you’ve ever seen before—a fascinating metal carriage with windows and doors, elegantly gliding on four rubber wheels.

It’s much faster than the horse-drawn carriages you’re used to and far more prestigious—“a true mark of affluence and stature,” a friend recently said. Lucky for you, you have enough money to buy one, and just down the street is the main office of the Middle East dealership for Ford: Charles Corm & Cie.

One weekday, you take your horse-drawn carriage to Damascus Street and stop in front of a towering, white structure seven stories tall. It’s an Art Deco building that looks like something out of New York’s skyline. Around it are the rolling green hills of a still largely undeveloped sector of the city.

You make your way to the showroom to see the car up close. You don’t hesitate.

“I’ll take it!” you declare.

“Yes sir, of course,” replies the kind lady who has been helping you. You can tell she’s used to this reaction and realize they must sell a lot of them.

“When is the soonest you can deliver it?” you ask.

“The soonest delivery will be next month,” she replies.

“But why?” you ask, confused.

“The shipment just came in, and we are assembling the new vehicles in our workshop.” She smiles as she writes something in her ledger.

“Your workshop? Do you mean to say that these vehicles are being assembled right here in Beirut?”

“Yes sir, right here in the back garden.” She points to the window behind her.

“If you like, I can show you.”

“Yes, please.”

You step into a huge garden behind the white tower, only to find a small workshop on one side. Employees unpack wooden crates stamped with the Ford Company logo from Dearborn, Michigan. They remove the separate parts of the vehicles and begin assembling them before your eyes. You stand amazed.

Fast forward almost a century, and the only countries where Ford cars are now made are the United States, Mexico, and Canada. While the above sounds like something out of a novel, it’s not—in the early twentieth century, Ford cars really were assembled in Lebanon.

The story of how that came to be is the result of the efforts of Charles Corm, the Lebanese writer, industrialist, and philanthropist. While Corm’s story deserves its own article, it’s worth noting here how the vehicles came to be assembled in this small Mediterranean nation.

Charles Corm

Charles Corm was born in 1894. After completing his education, he traveled to New York City at the age of eighteen in 1912. There, he established a small import-export office on Wall Street. Not long after, he had a pivotal meeting with industrialist Henry Ford, then the richest man in the world. In that meeting, Ford asked Corm where he was from.

“I’m from Lebanon, Mr. Ford,” said Charles.

“Where’s that on the map?” Ford asked while looking at a map in his office.

Corm quickly placed his finger on the image of his homeland.

“Do you even have roads in your country, son?” asked Ford.

Charles didn’t miss a beat. “For your cars, we will build roads!”

This encounter led to Corm securing the exclusive rights to represent the Ford Motor Company across the Middle East. His enterprise became one of the region’s first and most significant multinational corporations, employing thousands from Turkey to Iran and playing a major role in developing transportation infrastructure—roads, railways, and bridges—in emerging nations.

Retirement, Literature, and Philanthropy

In 1934, on the occasion of his 40th birthday and feeling content with his entrepreneurial successes, Corm decided to devote his life to literature and philanthropy. He distributed the agencies among his employees and transformed his business headquarters into the family home.

It was here that he established the headquarters of La Revue Phénicienne—a French-language journal he founded in 1919—within the same building. Over time, the space evolved into a hub for contemporary intellectuals and cultural figures, including Hector Khlat, Said Akl, and Michel Chiha.

Destroyed and Rebuilt

Following Corm’s passing in September 1963, his family continued to reside in the building until September 1975, when wartime rocket attacks led to a fire that forced their departure.

During the Civil War, militias occupied and ransacked the premises, leaving it neglected for many years. It wasn’t until the late 1990s that his sons, David and Hiram, returned and revived La Revue Phénicienne, assuming leadership of the publication.

More recently, they established the Fondation Charles Corm (or the Charles Corm Foundationin English) to promote and support the cultural and natural heritage of Lebanon in partnership with Saint Joseph University. The foundation organizes a variety of cultural events aimed at preserving and promoting Lebanon’s heritage. Its activities include exhibitions highlighting the work of female artists and literary achievements, roundtable discussions on Lebanese history and culture, book signings and panel discussions featuring writers and thinkers, theatrical productions, and art contests designed to encourage creativity and foster cultural dialogue.

Next time you are in Beirut, be sure not to miss it. The Ford assembly warehouse is now gone, but Corm’s artistic and entrepreneurial legacy is very much alive.

See the Charles Corm Foundation website here.

Before the Lebanese Civil War began in 1975, Lebanon manufactured its own vinyl records. One of the largest local companies producing them was the Société Libanaise Du Disque (SLD). As a major cultural institution, SLD played a central role in preserving, promoting, and advancing Lebanese music worldwide. It also helped shape Lebanon’s soundscape and the broader Arab music scene by bridging traditional Lebanese sounds with modern musical trends.

Origins and Early History

Founded in the early twentieth century, the Société Libanaise Du Disque emerged during a significant period of transformation in the Lebanese music industry. With its rich mix of Eastern and Western influences, Lebanon was beginning to experience a cultural renaissance. SLD was established in response to the growing demand for recorded music, which was gaining popularity worldwide due to advancements in sound recording technology.

Revolutionizing the Local Music Industry

During the mid-20th century, Lebanon was a central hub for the Arab music scene, producing some of the most well-known voices in Arab music. Artists such as Fairouz, Sabah, and Wadih El Safi, among many others, had their records produced by local companies, which significantly enhanced the country’s music profile on a global scale. In addition to supporting Lebanese artists, these production companies also manufactured records for foreign artists, including Shirley Bassey, Eddie Holman, and The Rolling Stones.

SLD’s contribution extended beyond merely promoting established artists; it played a crucial role as a curator of music. By producing albums that captured the essence of Lebanese folk music, classical influences, and modern Arabic pop, SLD created an invaluable musical archive that is still cherished today.

The label’s impact extended far beyond Lebanon. Its distribution network made Lebanese music accessible to the global Arab diaspora, turning it into a symbol of Lebanese cultural identity. When a diamond needle touched the groove of a vinyl record, listeners heard a fusion of traditional instruments, contemporary arrangements, and rich vocal styles. This helped Lebanon shape the evolution of modern Arab music.

Cultural Significance

In addition to promoting musical artists, SLD played a key role in documenting and preserving Lebanon’s diverse musical traditions. Its rich catalog includes not only mainstream pop and classical works but also folk and religious music.

During the War & Legacy

During Lebanon’s civil war in the 1970s and 1980s, SLD faced immense challenges. Despite the turmoil and destruction, its commitment to its mission remained steadfast. In the post-war years, the Société Libanaise Du Disque carried on its legacy by embracing new technologies. With the rise of streaming platforms and digital media, it adapted to the digital age. Classic Lebanese music has been reissued on CDs, digital platforms, and even vinyl, which has regained popularity. By doing so, SLD has ensured that Lebanon’s musical heritage remains accessible to both younger generations and international audiences.

On a late summer afternoon in 2019, an engineer stood in the open courtyard of a house he was overseeing and looked up at the sky. Lebanon, at the time, was gripped by nationwide protests, a deepening economic crisis, and a rapidly devaluing currency. Possibilities — financial and material alike — were narrowing.

He lowered his gaze, turned to his perplexed foreman, and said quietly, “I’ve found the solution.”

The brief was precise. During renovations, the house’s owner had removed the original red-tile pitched roof, leaving the courtyard exposed. In its place, he required a series of louvered sunshades: 8.2 meters long, spaced half a meter apart, and fully cantilevered from wall to wall. They were to provide shade and privacy from neighboring buildings, appear natural, and be constructed entirely of wood. Any intervention had to be structurally sound while remaining sympathetic to the house’s historical character.

The house had once belonged to Samia Baroody Corm — Lebanese cultural figure, beauty queen, and socialite — and her husband Charles Corm, who, following a meeting with Henry Ford, secured the Ford Motor Company dealership for the Greater Middle East at a time when Ford was the world’s sole automobile manufacturer. Their son, Hiram Corm, was now restoring the property as a retreat for his children and grandchildren, in Souk al-Gharb, a hill town on the outskirts of Beirut.

“What solution, sir?” the foreman asked.

“Wooden electricity poles,” the engineer replied.

The foreman’s expression changed instantly. “I’ve been trying to think of something,” he said, “that could work. But where would we find them?”

By then, Lebanon’s electrical infrastructure had long transitioned to steel utility poles. The engineer’s search led him to a contractor specializing in carpentry for coastal environments — cafés, boardwalks, and waterfront installations requiring rigorous waterproofing. The contractor revealed that he still had a stock of decommissioned wooden electricity poles made of Finnish pine (Pinus sylvestris), originally imported by the Lebanese government decades earlier and later replaced by steel.

Ten poles were ordered.

To install them, threaded bolts were embedded into the tops of the courtyard walls. Corresponding cavities were drilled into the louvers, filled with structural adhesive, and slipped over the bolts, creating a concealed connection. The timber was then sealed with multiple layers of waterproofing membranes to ensure longevity.

When the work was complete, the engineer recognized that the resulting structure was more than a practical solution. The louvers stood as a quiet testament to resilience and reuse — to sustainability born of constraint, and to an engineering gesture that bridged time, place, and nations.

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This article was originally published in Civil + Structural Engineer Magazine on August 25, 2024.

Tucked into a Mediterranean coastal town, a historic Lebanese house pediment was recently rescued from near collapse. Composed of five arches supporting a stone pediment, the structure had deteriorated after decades of abandonment. Ironically, what held it together in its final years were climbing plants whose roots had woven themselves through the columns and masonry, acting as an improvised brace.

The house was constructed at the turn of the twentieth century and underwent renovation in 1974. That intervention proved short-lived. Following the outbreak of the Lebanese Civil War in April 1975, the property was abandoned and left to the elements. It had belonged to Jamil Baroody, a prominent Lebanese diplomat who served as Saudi Arabia’s representative to the United Nations from the organization’s inaugural session in 1946 until 1979.

By 2019, the pediment’s condition had become a cause for alarm. Fearing imminent failure, Jamil Baroody’s nephew, Hiram Corm, initiated a restoration effort. Owing to the structure’s historical status, the project was subject to close scrutiny by local authorities and required a carefully considered approach. The objective was twofold: to stabilize and restore the pediment, and to introduce a pitched roof that would protect the house below from environmental exposure.

The intervention began with the careful dismantling of the pediment, each stone individually catalogued and numbered. The arches were then repositioned and leveled. Above them, the first course of brickwork was cut vertically in two, with the interior half removed. Within this concealed cavity, steel reinforcement and wooden formwork were installed to create a concrete tie-belt capable of supporting the pediment. Concrete was poured, forming a structural spine that left the exterior brickwork visually untouched while providing substantial internal reinforcement.

Once the concrete had cured, the pediment was reconstructed precisely as it had stood before. A new pitched roof was then added, reinforced with steel and cast in concrete, completing the restoration.

When the work concluded, a municipal employee reflected on the project: “Souk al-Gharb was in an uproar when the pediment was dismantled. We feared the house was being demolished to make way for something new. When we realized it was being strengthened and rebuilt, we rejoiced!”

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This article was originally published in Civil + Structural Engineer Magazine on July 14, 2024.