Beirut, Lebanon
Beirut requires a fertile platform for new modes of production and creation, and a new paradigm for sustainable architecture. With the urban landscape overwhelmed by heavy, barricaded, concrete towers from its recent histories, the Beirut Museum of Art building offers the opposite: transparency.
The museum’s physical and metaphorical transparencies offer an invitation to the community to gather within a vibrant place. An ETFE double skin featuring aluminum fins between the envelope’s two layers filters sunlight into the architecture. This experiential effect is a reference to the Japanese concept of komorebi, which is the movement of natural sunlight through the leaves of a tree. The result is an interior animation of light and a background for continuous movement. While museums typically present their activities within enclosed spaces, the Beirut Museum of Art’s activities are enlivened by animated, transparent spaces without boundaries. The ground floor opens to the street, allowing for free circulation and connection to its surroundings.
