• Dois apartamentos no porto de Beirut

    by Karim Nader Studio

journal

Fotografia: Marwan Harmouche & Walid Rashid 
06 / 04 / 2022
Este artigo só está disponível em Inglês.
Karim Nader Studio has recently completed two apartments in the port of Beirut. They both speak to his dedication to acts of reprise in sites scarred by destruction. 
Lebanese architect Karim Nader is engaged in preserving the architectural heritage of the city of Beirut as well as optimistically committed to acts of reprise in sites scarred by destruction.
As part of his commitment to the reprise of the city of Beirut, and in addition to his projects to restore iconic buildings from the modernist era, Karim Nader has also worked on several residential projects. Two of his recent works, both located in the port of Beirut (Sursock 14ème and Anthony), speak to his dedication. We hope you will find them interesting and will consider one or both of them for a possible publication.

On 4 August 2020, a devastating explosion shattered Beirut, leaving the city in a state of complete destruction and human despair. The “Domes de Sursock” tower, where one of the two apartments is located, was heavily damaged by the intense shockwaves; now the vast and well-lit apartment on the 14th floor looks vividly towards the port of Beirut for a second time.
The other apartment is also facing the port from its 20th floor location, its modernist architectural references brought to life in a play of lights and shadows, colors and muted grays.

I refuse to be labeled as an architect of the generation of war. I do not find interest in architecture as a war machine, nor in the war-torn building aesthetic. Beirut should be architecturally represented as always alive, forward looking, because the way of life.” - Karim Nader, For a Novel Architecture

Anthony Apartment

Located on the 20th floor of a Beiruti tower, the apartment benefits from a spectacular exposure to light and view. Maybe too much of an exposure, so much light that it demands a darkening.
Combined with a certain affinity for modernity and the purity of its lines, clear architectural references - Gerrit Rietveld, Le Corbusier, Eileen Grey... find their way as the necessary accents in primary color of an otherwise neutral background.
The consistent grey cement palette on floor and walls is only contradicted by the lightness of a natural wood ceiling where a Calder-like ‘mobile’ serves as a decorative light accent. Dark corridor and apartment entrance serve as ‘blind transitions’ while the multi-guest bedroom doubles as a yoga space and home office.
When Beirut eventually overlays itself in this modernist Mondrian-like collage, it is once again its moving shadows that activate all perspectives of this multi-layered city: north towards the port, south and east towards the mountains and west towards the central district. 
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Sursock 14ème Apartment

In January 2022, on the 14th floor of the “Domes de Sursock” tower, a vast and welllit apartment looks vividly towards the port of Beirut for a second time. Moving in with a paraphernalia of artworks and artifacts of a certain antiquity, emotional value and narrative complexity, a Beiruti family wishes to explore the contrast between the collection and a decisive sense of contemporary minimalism. This will also be however an opportunity to reflect on this ‘looking back’ at the port that is still the apartment’s main view, despite its state of notable ruin.
The collection is vast and a careful selection will be necessary to properly appreciate a selected object, but most importantly and in line with the client’s desire, to breathe through a certain white emptiness in every corner.

The exercise is a play of composition and balance around three poles: Lebanese designer items, contemporary European minimal furniture pieces and an object or two from the collection.

In the entrance, the dining room, the fireplace area, the library, the bar, the family room, the massage room, everyone of the sleeping rooms, an object will radiate its aura resting upon the white walls, ceilings and floors of the vast apartment lightly enhanced by the presence of the contemporary furniture and the soulful Lebanese designer items. Karina Sukar, Ounovis, Thomas Trad, Karim Nader, L’Inconnu, will start to dialogue with Catellani & Smith, Living Divani, Cassina, Poltrona Frau, Natuzzi in a delicate balance with the delicacy of an Utamaru print, now framed in graphite gunmetal, two Aubusson Tapestries in a large overscaled hanging system, the dancing angels statue on a white cylindrical base with a golden light stick from Catellani & Smith and a Lalique vase on a concrete table, to name a few of those unexpected couplings.
When gold leaf of a trundle coffee table is juxtaposed on a leather armchair with glossy gunmetal legs, a new type of emotion is now possible. It is this intent at making the object reappear within the emptiness that will make the apartment breathe a new life. And if the three women in the Jansem painting seem to be looking towards the port in their desolate faces through the now repaired large glass window, the bar of a Thomas Trad will remain a convivial invitation to the joys of the present time.
 
  • Dois apartamentos no porto de Beirut
  • Dois apartamentos no porto de Beirut
  • Dois apartamentos no porto de Beirut
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  • Dois apartamentos no porto de Beirut
  • Dois apartamentos no porto de Beirut
  • Dois apartamentos no porto de Beirut
  • Dois apartamentos no porto de Beirut
  • Dois apartamentos no porto de Beirut
  • Dois apartamentos no porto de Beirut
  • Dois apartamentos no porto de Beirut
  • Dois apartamentos no porto de Beirut
  • Dois apartamentos no porto de Beirut
  • Dois apartamentos no porto de Beirut
  • Dois apartamentos no porto de Beirut
  • Dois apartamentos no porto de Beirut
Para mais informações, visite o website Karim Nader Studio.
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