Beirut Architecture Landmarks

Beirut Architecture Landmarks - Extract from the Extracts from the "book Insiders Guide to Lebanon"

The Grand Serail - Beirut Down Town"

Built in 1856 to host the Ottoman Governor of Lebanon, it became the office of the High Commission during the French Mandate from 1918 till 1941. The damaged building was renovated in the nineties and two floors were added to accommodate the Lebanese Government.

Nicolas Susock Museum - Rue Sursock"

This exquisite Venitian-oriental style residence built in 1912, was donated by the Sursock family in the 1950s to the City of Beirut and since then became a museum for Lebanese Contemporary Art. It is presently being enlarged.

Corm Building - National Museum Square

Designed by Charles Corm in 1928 to be the Headquarters of his Ford Motor Co's Near-East Dealership, the Art Deco building was the first concrete and highest structure in Beirut until 1956. It was transformed into a residence for his family in the 1940's and was seriously damaged in the civil war until its renovation in 1994.

Virgin Megastore - Martyr's Square

In the totally destroyed area of Beirut's Central District, this elegant building was designed in 1932 by the first Lebanese MIT graduate Bahjat Adelnour, and was known as the Cinema Opera until it was restored and rehabilitated by Joe Farah in 2002 to become the flagship of Virgin Megastore.

St George Hotel - Corniche

An internationally celebrated landmark of Beirut directly located on the sea front. Built in 1933, it was designed by Antoine Tabet and became the symbol of Lebanon's golden age until the civil war damaged it seriously in the 1980s. It is still standing on its unique site but has not been refurbished yet.

Phoenicia InterContinental Hotel - Corniche"

The conceptual design by Edward-Durell Stone in 1961 was developed by the Lebanese architects Ferdinand Dagher and Rodolphe Elias to become a 5 star Hotel facing the Mediterranean and a landmark in Beirut before it was partially destroyed during the civil war. It was renovated in the nineties, with two additional towers doubling its capacity.

Centre Sabbagh - Hamra Street

At the beginning of busy Hamra Street, this office and commercial building was designed in 1970 by Alvar Aalto and Alfred Roth, with two totally different facades, according to the site location and sun orientation.

Gefinor Center - Clemenceau

A quality office complex built in 1970 and easy to spot near the American University of Beirut. Designed by L.A. based Victor Gruen Associates in partnership with Lebanese architect Assem Salam, the building are a model of extremely refined Modernist architecture.

Sofil Center - Achrafieh

An attractive office and banking center with hanging gardens terraces in the residential area of Achrafieh, it was designed by Chicago's Skidmore and Partners with Pierre Neema just before the civil war started. It was finished in 1984, when Beirut's center had become a war zone.

ESCWA United Nations Building - Down Town"

The first modern building to rise in the destroyed Downtown area in 1995, it was designed by Pierre El Khoury who also designed two other fine buildings after the civil war period, the BLOM Bank Building in 1993 and the An-Nahar Newspaper Headquarters in 1999.

Yabani Restaurant - Damascus Street

One cannot miss the Japanese restaurant designed in 2002 by young talented architect Bernard Khoury on a lot too small to be built on. Therefore, he located the restaurant underground and turned the visible tower into a huge lift to carry the guests from the street level to the well-lit basement. Khoury is also known for his dramatic night club B018 also built underground, in the Qarantina area.

David Charles Corm – Architect

What is more spectacular than the 1800 and 1900 history, is the "old Beirut" or shall I say, the city which is buried underneath the modern or current city of Beirut.

Lebanon's treasure is its tourism, no place on earth is as historically rich as Lebanon, almost all the civilizations that ever existed in Africa, Asia and Europe, had stepped on the Lebanese Land and left its mark.

Unfortunately, the "modern Lebanese" are savage like, slaughtering each other and are too busy to preserve history, maintain it, dig it from underneath sand and show it to the world.

Lebanon is cursed, and it is cursed by the idiocracy of its current population.

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