We were also captivated by Studio HASS IDRISS’ "The Supper Club", a quirky reimagining of 'The Last Supper' as an embroidered feast, complete with fried fish, fresh artichokes, flower arrangements, and ornamental plates, all rendered in cotton, linen, silk, tulle, metal threads and glass beads, laboriously stitched together by 12 artisans over 2,305 hours. Accompanied by headphones whispering fragmented dinner conversations, the installation conjured the magical suspension of time that accompanies the communal ritual of dining, evoking that fleeting moment when people gathered around a table feel connected and understood.

Nearby, furniture designer Nada Debs brought marquetry into focus with a dedicated workstation alongside pieces like the "MARQUETRYMANIA Dining Table", whose curvaceous volume was adorned by delicate ribbons of inlaid wood.

Finally, architectural designer Tessa Sakhi celebrated glasswork through two installations: one featuring flame-working with borosilicate glass tubes with the help of flame worker Boutros Sawaya, the other showcasing traditional glass-blowing created using a primitive oven. Built on-site in collaboration with the Khalifeh family hailing from Sarafand, one of the last keepers of the country's ancestral craft, the oven operated with fire stone, sand and hay, allowing visitors to experience the glass-blowing process in its most elemental form.

More modest in scale yet just as captivating were architectural designer Elie Riachi’s “Stillness in Motion”, a marble bench inspired by the Roman Baths’ architectural composition and enduring structure, as well as Mohamed Fares’ trio of altar-like sculptures which mixed blocky pedestals with round vessels in a variety of marbles and textures, one of which was punctuated with holes inviting visitors to place flowers.

Other highlights included works that combined sculptural presence with functional purpose. Jeffrey Meawad's "Stillae" for example, took the form of a curvaceous marble sofa and matching armchair, their fluid shapes appearing to have been sculpted by water over time; Samir Hakim's "Boon" coffee table imagined soap as part of the Roman bathing ritual through a cluster of spherical, bubble-like volumes; while Carl Gerges' "Echoed Thermes", a monolithic bathtub carved from a single block of Green Guatemala marble, functioned as an actual thermal bath, reviving the ancient practice of hydrotherapy.

Another installation that wowed us was Sereen Hassanieh's "Fluvia”, a seven-metre-long serpentine sculpture that doubled as a bench. This piece made an indelible impression as much for its scale as for its composition, featuring a rippling body made up of a domino-like progression of marble tiles in varying heights, colours, and textures.

Finally, one of the most introspective works of the exhibition, Tarek Shamma's "Nine Reflections" invited visitors into a mirrored chamber inside a standalone stone pavilion. Crowned by an oculus underneath which stood a water basin, the mirrored interior dissolved the structure’s vaulted design into a continuous, unbroken circle of light and stone, offering a meditative reprieve from the sensory and emotional intensity of the wider exhibition.

At Immeuble de l'Union, a modernist landmark from the 1950s, soon to be renovated by Lebanese architect Karim Nader, the "Journey of Light" exhibition curated by Nader and lighting design studio Atelier33 allowed the public to experience the ruined building before its transformation where each floor contained a light installation that functioned as a narrative “chapter” in its past and imagined future.

Christian Pellizzari's "Frosted Mirror Syriacus" installation offered the most poignant moment: a glowing giant Murano glass flower with a serpentine stem lying on debris-strewn rubble, the installation was a paean to resilience, symbolizing that beauty can grow over destruction. Atelier33’s own installations also made an impression, playing with the building's industrial essence, with vertical lines of blue and red neon enclosed in steel cages, punctuating the space with rhythm and tension.

Finally, our visit to the Saloua Raouda Choucair Foundation in the Lebanese mountains brought an end to the program with an unexpected sense of clarity. Choucair’s work, a synthesis of Islamic artistic principles and European modernist language, demonstrate how heritage and innovation are not opposites, but interdependent forces. Furthermore, the fact that her decades-long practice sustained through Lebanon’s most turbulent years stands as proof that cultural perseverance does not mean resisting change.

What was clear after five days of We Design Beirut was that Lebanon’s cultural engine runs on resilience rather than certainty. Fifty years after the onset of the civil war, and through countless hardships since, the country’s creative community continues to weave new narratives from fragments, to build connection out of dispersion, and to insist that beauty and meaning can emerge even in contexts marked by conflict. Culture persists here because people rebuild it faster than it can fall apart. And as long as Beirut continues to imagine itself forward, we will continue to return.