Beirut- architecture

Photos courtesy of Bernardkhoury.com ( i hope he doesn't mind given the less than pandering stance i took vis a vis his antics in this post)

Once this blog hopefully stops being an inner monologue and someone starts asking how a blog on Singapore real estate is connected to Beirut, that's just because I really hope that someday, I'd be granted honorary citizenship to the city.

Anyway, besides the city's enfant terrible, Bernard Khoury, I've recently 'discovered' another architect- Issam Barhouch. He's the man behind Elements, a club, which, as I remember it, is next to Khoury's hip sushi bar, Yabani(which I'm similarly crazy about). I never did see the interiors of Elements but it seemed a really cool place- much like a very modern house, really, with a semblance of a very well maintained garden.

Down the street is Kitchen, another Barhouch creation. Kitchen, a restaurant, is on the same street as Market, another restaurant that oddly seems to have the same concept and design as Kitchen- wonder who's behind Market though...

What I really like about the designs in Beirut is that it always manages to provide a platform for a political statement- a knowledge seemingly intrinsic to media-savvy Khoury who seemingly exploits it to his best advantage.

Want a club in a low-rent area that's guaranteed plenty of media interest- The answer is B018, a club designed like an underground bunker situated within a locality that was witness to the massacres of many a Lebanese during the wars.

Yabani was similarly a political statement- a chic sushi bar(I really dig that lift shaft cum chi chi lobby that takes you down to the sushi bar) with patrons and prices that underscore the disparity in Beirut. When the restaurant first came to press(as per the photos in Wallpaper magazine), I understand that Yabani stood alone amongst what looked like detritus. By the time I got there though, a whole list of restaurants and clubs had sprouted around it, I suppose the political statement became rather diluted.

Centrale, as the foreign media would have it, was Solidere's(the manifestation of the offensive, painfully out-of-context developer as the media quoted Khoury saying) gesture of reconciliation with the very vocal Khoury. I did not visit it but will make it a point to the next time. Background information on the supposed friction between Solidere and Khoury- Solidere, the brainchild of Hariri, is responsible for the reconstruction of post-war Beirut. Khoury has criticised Solidere's re-creation of the French-inspired apartments downtown. If Khoury was referring to those apartments with the balconies around Riad el-Solh- I actually thought they were pretty cool!

And yes, I'm also curious to find out who's behind Elie Saab's boutique in Beirut and have made a mental note to check out Black Box Aizone, an offshoot of Aishti, which I had a glimpse of from the highway.