Lebanese-born architect Amale Andraos and her company, WORKac, have been selected to design the future Beirut Museum of Art. The art museum, whose project had previously been awarded to Paris-based Lebanese architect Hala Wardé in a 2016 competition, will now be built under Andraos, featuring an open-view walkway that transforms the museum’s interior rooms into an “indoor-outdoor” space. The site, owned by Université Saint-Joseph, had marked the Green Line separating Muslim areas from Christian ones during the Lebanese civil war. The design is intended to “break down the barriers of the museum and allow members of the community open views and access,” in the words of Ali Oriaku from The Architect’s Newspaper. Oriaku emphasizes that the ‘“open museum” idea is especially significant when considering the building’s location on a site known for its history of religious segregation and conflict.”

Both the European and Western Left, as well as their Arab counterparts, have received their share of criticism regarding their policies on the Syrian war. While some intellectual debates among the different factions of the Left indicate differences in policy outlooks, a majority of these groups remain united in their embrace of Syria’s Assad and his Russian enabler, Vladimir Putin. Hussam Itani’s essay “Imperialism First!: European Leftists Abandon Anti-Fascist Legacy to Embrace Putin and Assad,” which appears in the forthcoming issue of Al Jadid, centers on how the European Left abandoned the struggle against fascism, and instead turned its energies to fighting U.S. imperialism.