In 1974, the Holiday Inn opened in Beirut: a 26-storey hotel, dreamed up as an optimistic symbol of modern Lebanon. But the very next year, the building, along with several other skyscrapers in the city’s glittering centre, was transformed into a battlefield in the civil war. Militant groups fought bloody battles on the floors, while the roof terraces became strategic spots for snipers. The battles of the hotels lasted seven months and resulted in the city being divided into east and west for more than fifteen years. Half a century later, the Holiday Inn remains as it was left: an echoing void, perforated with bullet holes.
On her album Marjaa: The Battle of the Hotels, Mayssa Jallad approaches this dark chapter in her homeland’s history. Her interest in the hidden stories of buildings and how urban structures are linked to decisive events began when she studied architecture at Columbia University in New York City and wrote a master’s thesis on the hotel wars. This gave rise to the idea of creating music and images that could preserve and disseminate the collective histories and traumas that have unfolded in the city. She addresses an audience that, like herself, is too young to have experienced this extreme period in Lebanon’s history, in the hope of inspiring dreams of a true renewal of the country.
