Visited in May 2023.
In this case, I was lucky, because the architectural project of Oskar Niemeyer received the status of world heritage in January 2023, at an extraordinary session, in a number of objects under threat, together with Odessa. The 1950s were a time of rapid development of Lebanon, which gained independence during WWII. One of the symbols of the country's economic success was planned to be a permanent International Fair Center in Tripoli, then a confident northern competitor of Beirut. The Brazilian Oscar Niemeyer, who was at the peak of fame after the creation of the new capital of his homeland, was invited for the design. The project of the fair complex was ready in 1962, but the implementation was delayed: it took a long time to buy the land, the objects were technically difficult for local engineers and contractors. Nevertheless, by 1975, 15 buildings and structures were erected in varying degrees of readiness: the entrance group, the main 750-meter boomerang-shaped pavilion, the Lebanon pavilion, a dome theater, an arch, an amphitheater, a helipad, a prototype of a collective residential unit, now quite unsuccessfully renovated into a hotel. All the buildings of the complex are made of concrete, Niemeyer's signature style.

But in 1975, a 15-year civil war began in Lebanon, then a Syrian military base was located on the territory of the exhibition center, and then Tripoli was gradually marginalized and fundamentalized, and the facilities fell into disrepair. Nevertheless, it is a typical, well-recognizable Niemeyer, with national motifs. This integration of Brazilian modernism of the 1960s in the Arab context can still be saved, thanks to UNESCO, it will now be much easier to do. It is not to say that the complex is currently under some obvious threat, rather it is about the need for conservation, which requires serious finances, which Lebanon is currently struggling with.