Beiruting News

Excellencies, colleagues, friends,
Good evening and welcome to Abroyan Factory. Thank you for joining us for the opening of “Città in Scena. Urban Regeneration: the Italian way to a sustainable future.”
Let me begin by thanking Abroyan Factory and Union Marks for hosting us and for embracing this collaboration. The choice of venue is intentional. We are standing in a space with a strong industrial past, which is being re-imagined for public use. This is exactly what urban regeneration means in practice: taking buildings and places that once served a different function, often left idle, and returning them to the city as open, living spaces for culture, community and new economic activity.
What is the exhibition you are about to see? Città in Scena brings to Beirut over 130 Italian projects and practices from recent years - many developed in the momentum of Italy’s post-pandemic investments - and arranges them as a practical catalogue of ideas. You will find interventions of different scales: from the adaptive reuse of heritage sites to the redesign of public squares, from mobility and services of proximity to community hubs and cultural infrastructure. The purpose is not to celebrate “beautiful projects” in the abstract. The purpose is to share concrete tools - policy approaches, governance models, financial solutions, design methods - that can help cities become more inclusive, resilient and sustainable.
Why present this in Beirut, and why now? Because urban regeneration is a political question, not only a technical one. In Lebanon, we have witnessed over time the erosion of public space.  Areas open to the public allow people to meet and participate, and create economic opportunities for those who live and work there. Today, after the tragic conflict with Israel, Beirut and the country are engaged in yet another discussion about reconstruction. That discussion cannot be reduced to rebuilding what was damaged, as if we were simply putting the same pieces back together. It is about how we want to live in our cities. It is about access, inclusion, safety, mobility, climate resilience, and dignity in everyday life.
In this conversation, Italy wants, and is able, to do its part. We are doing so in two ways. First, by mobilizing resources: in recent months, we have disbursed around 50 million euros for initiatives linked to the crisis in areas affected by the conflict. Second, by putting replicable models on the table: ways of organizing partnerships, managing assets, engaging communities, and making projects financially and institutionally sustainable. Città in Scena is our contribution to this second effort: not a lecture from abroad, but an open toolbox for a shared endeavour.
This toolbox is meant to be used. That is why the exhibition is accompanied by a public programme here in Bourj Hammoud, just nearby, at Cinema Royal. Allow me to highlight the four events and invite you all to join:
• On 23 September at 6:00 PM. RIGENERA – Resilience in Action: a public talk on architecture as a tool of reconstruction and social cohesion, starting from concrete, built examples.
• On 29 September at 5:00 P. PRINCIPIA – A new model of urban regeneration: the team behind MIND – Milano Innovation District will be with us. MIND is the large-scale transformation of the former Expo Milano 2015 site into a district for research, healthcare, education and business—an ambitious, long-term project that shows how governance, and phasing public-private collaboration can unlock new value for an entire metropolitan area.
• On 30 September at 4:00 PM. Roundtable – “From the Community Up”: a conversation on civic-led urban regeneration, everyday urbanism and small-scale interventions that can catalyse broader change, with practical angles for Beirut.
• And on 7 October at 4:00 PM. Presentation of the restoration and future use of the former Mar Mikhaël Station: an overview of a flagship initiative funded by the Italian Cooperation to rehabilitate and re-activate this historic railway site for the benefit of the city.
You will find the event flyers at the entrance; please take one and share it. We want these sessions to be open, practical and solution-oriented. 
Before we open the exhibition, let me return for a moment to this place. Abroyan Factory is an eloquent reminder that the built environment is never “finished.” Cities are processes. They absorb shocks, they adapt, they learn. When we bring a building like this back into public life, we are not only preserving memory; we are creating new opportunities. This is the spirit in which Italy stands with Lebanon: with a willingness to work together on policies, partnerships and projects that can last.
I wish to thank all the partners who made Città in Scena possible here in Beirut, in particular the Director of the Italian Institute of Culture, Angelo Gioè. Thank you all for being here. I invite you now to walk through the exhibition, to continue the conversation, and - after your visit - to join us in the open space just outside for a reception and networking.
Thank you, and enjoy the evening.

*P.s.: Speech available only in English🙏*