Niemeyer's project in Lebanon inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site

The Brazilian Government congratulates the Lebanese government and people for the inscription of the Tripoli Rachidi Karami International Fair in the UNESCO world heritage list, approved today, January 25, in an extraordinary meeting of the organization. The fair was concomitantly inscribed on the list of World Heritage in Danger, due to the urgent need for conservation and restoration works.

The fair projected by Oscar Niemeyer was built between 1967 and 1975, when the Lebanese civil war broke out. It is an exceptional example of cultural exchange in the field of architecture, both for the exchange of knowledge during its realization – which provided Lebanese engineers and contractors learning about large-scale reinforced concrete structures – and for the result, which integrates Brazilian modernist concepts in the Arab context of the Levant. The Minister of Foreign Affairs, through the Embassy in Beirut, will seek to cooperate with the Lebanese authorities to support the fair's restoration project.

This is the first project by Niemeyer outside Brazil to be inscribed on UNESCO's world heritage list, and the sixth Lebanese site to appear on the same list.