No one can agree what Beit Beirut is for or what objects should be on display there

NEARLY three decades after the end of the civil war in Lebanon, the façade of the Barakat building in central Beirut is still pitted with bullet holes. Craters in its limestone walls have been patched with concrete and its elegant colonnade is held up by ugly metal struts. Inside, the upper flights of two stone staircases hang above rubble-strewn voids. The lower sections were blown apart by snipers to prevent anyone getting upstairs. The ceilings are scorched black and barricades of concrete-reinforced sandbags still divide some rooms in two. The Arabic graffiti scrawled by Christian militiamen have never been erased. One signed himself Begin, after the former Israeli prime minister. Another says simply: “Hell”.

Built in the 1920s, the building started off as the home of the wealthy Barakat family. But after the civil war began in 1975, it became a notorious snipers’ nest on the front line between east and west Beirut. Its site, coupled with its unique open architecture, made it the perfect redoubt. The crossroads on which it stood became known as takaata al-mawt—“the intersection of death”.

Later this month the Barakat building will open to the public for the first time in its new incarnation as Beit Beirut (The House of Beirut), a memory museum, cultural centre and urban observatory dedicated to commemorating the everyday life of the city over the past century. But the building, which was expropriated by the Beirut municipality in 2003 and renovated with over $18m of public funds, is opening on a temporary basis, with no board, no director, no cultural policy, no permanent collection and no staff—not even a maintenance team.

Beit Beirut was designed to have an auditorium and library on the ground floor, space for temporary exhibitions exploring urban issues and peace and reconciliation on the second and third floors, and a rooftop restaurant and café. The first floor, with the worst of the damage and the snipers’ barricades, is dedicated to the memory of the war years. Without a permanent collection, though, it is not really a museum, yet agreeing on which objects should be in that collection is easier said than done.

The civil war officially ended in 1991 with a fragile amnesty. In the absence of any official history of the period, the conflict is not taught in most schools. Beit Beirut has been plagued by disagreement. Mona El-Hallak, an architect and heritage- preservation activist who began a campaign to save the building in 1997, believes the museum should avoid names and dates completely, focusing instead on personal stories—both positive and negative—that explore “how war changes a human being and a city”.

The letters and documents that she salvaged from the building (stored, for the moment, in her attic) provide some insight into the lives of its pre-war tenants. Ms El-Hallak has also discovered 11,000 photographic negatives—most of them portraits dating from the 1950s to the 1970s—in a photography studio on the ground floor. She hopes to hand them out to visitors and ask each one to research the photo and come back with a story.

Youssef Haidar, the architect responsible for the renovation, disputes the need for a permanent collection. For him “the collection is the building” and artefacts are unnecessary: “Look at the monstrousness of what we did. Look at the war. [Its] traces are there. The museum is finished.”

Matilda El-Khoury, who is also an architect and the city-council member responsible for managing the municipality’s cultural portfolio, holds yet another view. She sees the war years as “a small bracket” in the history of Lebanon, and wants Beit Beirut also to explore the city’s urban fabric all the way to the Ottomans.

None of this will be easy. In the absence of a director, there is no cohesive vision for the building; it will open until the end of the year as a gallery space, rather than as a museum. Without employees, the restaurant, library and other amenities will remain closed. The municipality has asked exhibitors to supply their own manpower and to choose their own opening hours.

On paper, Beit Beirut should provide a much-needed public space for reflection, reconciliation and the celebration of ordinary lives. Ms El-Hallak hoped it would offer people a chance to share their stories. But since construction was finished last year, only private events have taken place there. In April a local NGO threw a lavish invitation-only party attended by politicians, diplomats and celebrities. Its ostensible purpose was to mark the opening of the library; months later, it is still closed.

After much delay, Ms El-Khoury insists that, once the legalities are established, Beit Beirut will become the museum the public were promised. But Mr Haidar fears the building is being hijacked as a party-place for the politically connected. “It is not being used for its original intentions.”