Designer Benedicte de Blavous Moubarak went on a very big shopping trip before Christmas — to junkyards in Beirut.

She had a lot of things to buy. Shattered doors. Broken window frames. Old railings. Wrought iron gates. Wooden arches. And other architectural elements from stately, albeit crumbling, Lebanese homes that were destroyed, she said, “because of the war or because of greed.”