Modernist Beirut

Since the 1950s, Beirut and Lebanon have been a veritable laboratory of architectural modernity in the Middle East, calling on the greatest national and international architects. Lebanese institutions and large companies began to use concrete and so-called brutalist forms, fully participating in the renewal of global architecture.

Lebanon gave birth to a flowering of exemplary buildings during this period; this work is an invitation to discover more than thirty of them, often little-known and admirably captured through the eyes of Matthieu Salvaing.

The authors invite the reader to follow them on a journey to the heart of the different modernist experiences found across Lebanon, with multiple testimonies of a generous, international vision. From public commissions, such as the emblematic Tripoli International Fair built by Oscar Niemeyer or the Ministry of Defense by André Wogenscky, to private villas like those created by Henri Edde, including the Interdesign building by Khalil Khoury, this work is a celebration of a happy history of Lebanon, anchored in modernity and open to the world.

AUTHORS

Matthieu Salvaing is a photographer specializing in architecture and design. He regularly collaborates with AD and World of Interiors magazines. An eternal traveler, his numerous stays in Brazil have allowed him to produce the work Oscar Niemeyer (Assouline, 2001). His reports gave birth to the book Interior Journeys (Rizzoli, 2020).

A dealer, gallery owner and decorator, and specialist in modernist Brazilian furniture and French furniture from the 1980s, Guillaume Excoffier lives between Paris and Dubai. He lived for several years in Beirut, where he founded the design gallery Gabriel et Guillaume in 2013; it is now based in New York.

INFORMATION

Format: 280 x 380 mm
Number of pages: 312
Number of illustrations: 200
Hardcover cloth binding
and screen printed
Text in French and English

ISBN: 9782376660798