The fascination of urban wastelands lies in their transitory character, in their simultaneous No Longer and Not Yet. At the end of the 17-year Civil War, central Beirut was an utter wasteland. Very little of that wasteland remains. Historicising restoration, but also modern high-rises with glass façades have fundamentally altered the character of the central city. The Beirut City Centre Building, called „The Egg“ in reference to its form, is one of the last Civil War ruins. The former cinema was part of a modernist business and shopping complex; at the war‘s outbreak in 1975, it had not yet been completed. In contrast to residential housing ruins, the ruins from former meeting and cultural rooms are quickly infused with iconographic and metaphoric significance. Perhaps this can explain the bitterness associated with discussions in Beirut about whether the „Egg“ should be demolished, restored or reprogrammed. In a society fragmented into so many diverse interest groups, the question of a potential space for meeting – even a cinema – is apparently a particularly precarious one.