Dubai, United Arab Emirates (CNN) – The refurbishment of the abandoned Niemeyer guest house in the Lebanese city of Tripoli has become one of six winning projects of the prestigious “Aga Khan Award” for architecture.
The “East Architecture” studio was chosen to work on this project in 2018, which is part of the Rashid Karami International Exhibition, whose development has been interrupted for decades by various crises in Lebanon.
abandoned project
The history of the project’s incubation space dates back to 1964, when the process of building a permanent and ambitious international exhibition called “Rashid Karami International Exhibition” began.
“The 40-hectare site was supposed to host up to two million visitors a year,” said one of the founders of the studio, Charles Kittaneh, in an interview with CNN Arabic.
The masterplan was designed by the Brazilian architect, considered one of the most important names in the world of modern architecture, Oscar Niemeyer.
The project was scheduled to open in 1969 but was soon abandoned due to funding problems and the outbreak of the Lebanese civil war in 1975.
Katana said: “After the subsequent wars and the Israeli invasion in 1982, work on the exhibit came to a complete halt, leaving the complex deserted for years.”
In 2018, the Rashid Karami International Exposition was inscribed among the sites nominated for the UNESCO World Heritage List, according to the organization’s official website.
New life
The guesthouse was originally designed to house the organizers and attendees of the exhibition, but today it has a new purpose.
A French development agency called “Expertise France” was looking for a location for “Manjra”, an initiative aimed at revitalizing Tripoli’s famous wood industry, which has recently been in decline.
From there, the studio was chosen to give the guest house “a new life”, in the words of one of the studio’s founders, Nicolas Fayyad.
The guest house surprises with its light-flooded interior, an open space with a central courtyard.
Like the production chain, the various functions that make up the platform embrace concepts of continuity and flexibility, blurring the boundaries between the spaces of thought and production.
During the renovation, the studio wanted to maintain the building’s fundamental architectural qualities and its imaginary past.
Fayyad pointed out that the result embodied the study’s interpretation of the guest house’s “DNA”.
The project involved the installation of flexible joints and the introduction of electrical and mechanical installations.
“Most importantly, we wanted every aspect of the intervention to be reversible should the building host a new program in the future and also as a way to preserve the integrity of the structure,” said Fayyad.
The project was among the six winning projects of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture 2022.
“We are proud that the renovation of the Niemeyer guest house stood out among a number of impressive projects,” confirmed Fayyad.
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