WE Design Beirut Is Coming Back Next May For Its Third Edition, “Love On The Mediterranean”

Returning from May 26 to 30, 2027, the multidisciplinary platform will bring designers, architects, artisans, chefs and cultural voices together across Beirut and beyond.

WE Design Beirut is officially returning for its third edition, taking place from May 26 to 30, 2027, with a new theme that looks beyond borders and towards the waters that have long connected them: “Love On The Mediterranean.”

Since its launch, WE Design Beirut has grown beyond the traditional framework of a design week. It has become a multidisciplinary cultural platform where design, architecture, craftsmanship, heritage and contemporary creativity meet, while creating space for conversation between Lebanon and the wider international community.

For 2027, the Mediterranean is approached not simply as a location on a map, but as a cultural artery. For centuries, its waters have carried people, traditions, ingredients, objects, techniques and ideas between different shores. “Love On The Mediterranean” will explore the emotional, historical and creative connections that continue to link these communities today.

Across five days, the program will unfold through exhibitions, installations, talks, student initiatives and cultural activations. Established and emerging designers will take part alongside architects, artisans, chefs, curators and students from Lebanon and abroad, creating an edition built around collaboration rather than a single discipline.

The upcoming chapter also promises a wider focus on international exchange, education and conversations between different creative practices. While the full list of designers, locations and programming has yet to be announced, the event will once again activate historically and architecturally significant sites throughout Beirut and beyond. This relationship between design and place has become one of WE Design Beirut’s most defining qualities. Rather than presenting work inside anonymous exhibition halls, the platform allows Beirut’s buildings to become part of each story.

During its second edition in 2025, exhibitions unfolded across locations including Villa Audi, the Roman Baths, Burj El Murr, Abroyan Factory and Immeuble de l’Union. Each space carried its own memories, architectural language and relationship to the city, placing contemporary design in direct conversation with Beirut’s past.

The program included eight exhibitions across five locations, alongside panel discussions, workshops, showcases and excursions. Its official recap recorded more than 200 participants, as well as 4.5 million social media views and an organic reach of 207,000 accounts.

The exhibitions moved between materials, generations and cultural questions. At the Roman Baths, designers reimagined marble through the histories of water and communal rituals. At Abroyan Factory, textiles and traditional skills were explored as living archives of labour, memory and resilience. Burj El Murr became the setting for a student exhibition examining conflict as an ongoing system rather than a closed chapter.

These projects reflected the platform’s wider commitment to treating heritage as something active. Not frozen in the past, but continuously questioned, protected and reshaped by new generations.

Launching another edition in Lebanon’s current climate is an ambitious decision, but for founder Mariana Wehbe, that is exactly why it matters.

“This is precisely when culture becomes essential,” Wehbe says, describing WE Design Beirut as a platform centred on continuity, preserving knowledge, supporting creatives and reminding audiences of the cultural richness that continues to exist in Lebanon.

With its third edition, WE Design Beirut is not only inviting the Mediterranean into Beirut. It is placing Beirut back within a larger Mediterranean conversation, one shaped by movement, memory, hospitality, craftsmanship and exchange.

Further announcements surrounding the participating designers, venues and full program will be revealed in the coming months.

WE Design Beirut 03: Love On The Mediterranean
May 26 to 30, 2027
Beirut, Lebanon

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