On the grounds of the Tripoli International Fair (Rashid Karameh International Exhibition Center) in Lebanon, one finds one of the five largest exhibition centers in the world. The 15 structures, designed by legendary Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer in 1963, remain unfinished due to the project's abandonment during the country's civil war in 1975. Inscribed on UNESCO's World Heritage List and World Heritage in Danger List, on January 25th, 2023, the 70-hectare site is located between the historic center of Tripoli and the port. In 2022, the renovation of one of the structures on the site, the Niemeyer Guest House, by East Architecture won the Aga Khan Award.
Photographer Anthony Saroufim, who is based in Beirut and Paris, captured the site's unfinished concrete structures, a couple of years ago. The photographs reveal the simultaneous hints of progress and crisis, and of imagination and ruin.
Check out Anthony Saroufim's gallery of this striking, unfinished Niemeyer project.
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