Open Lightbox: (new)  Collection contains 37 images

Powerful Structure

Spectacular 3-storey house in Beirut

Beirut is in the throes of a building boom, much commented upon, loved and hated in equal measure. Lebanese architect Bernard Khoury trained in the United States before returning home, hoping to participate in the rebuilding of embattled and ruined Beirut, much destroyed during the 15 year civil war. He says Beirut was the most interesting laboratory in the world when reconstruction began. Khoury and his wife Nathalie and 2 children live in a detached, 3-storey house on top of a building he designed for a developer with whom he had designed an earlier residential building (among many other projects from nightclubs to a library for the Venice Bi-ennale) The house is spectacular. Khoury describes it as 'framing a view to catastrophic urban Beirut, an in-your-face scene which unusually is facing away from the Mediterranean. The double-height living room glass wall slides away and a glass balustrade is all that protects the space from a 9-floor drop. The site below is protected by a 3 Cemeteries, the French Embassy and Lycee and other institutions so is quite unique as almost every plot is being used up. He has a love of wood and steel, his grandfather and father a carpenter and furniture designer/architect and he likes to work with artisans who are not part of the conventional building trade. The living room storage units are highly crafted and on wheels, Khoury designed the dining table and used a master plasterer to make the black oval ceiling unit which houses air cooling, a gesture to ornate plaster work of the past being re-invented. His wife chose the remaining furniture adding a feminine touch to a powerful structure.


BEKHO001

 


BEKHO002

 


BEKHO003

 


BEKHO004

 


BEKHO005

 


BEKHO006

 


BEKHO007

 


BEKHO008

 


BEKHO009

 


BEKHO010

 


BEKHO011

 


BEKHO012

 


BEKHO013

 


BEKHO014

 


BEKHO015

 


BEKHO016

 


BEKHO017

 


BEKHO018

 


BEKHO019

 


BEKHO020

 


BEKHO021

 


BEKHO022

 


BEKHO023

 


BEKHO024

 


BEKHO025

 


BEKHO026

 


BEKHO027

 


BEKHO028

 


BEKHO029

 


BEKHO030

 


BEKHO031

 


BEKHO032

 


BEKHO033

 


BEKHO034

 


BEKHO035

 


BEKHO036

 


BEKHO037

 

     
Page 1 of 1 
© 2009. Site by Nick Horgan, EWA Digital.