The concrete structure sandwiched between the first and last slides in this series is the Interdesign building designed by Khalil Khouri in 1973. As ArchDaily puts it, “the building took 23 years to build, a process halted by the onset of the Lebanese Civil War. By the time it was completed in 1996, the urban landscape that surrounded it had changed. The structure has stood largely unused since, as a relic of hopeful modernity. While its design is singular in its narrative and expression, this structure illustrates the tension between aspiration and struggle throughout its complex history.”
I first learned about this building when an urbanist shared in a casual gathering of architects and “urbanophiles” like myself why it’s his favorite: “it’s a middle finger to the rest of the city; it gives me hope.”
I wasn’t sure at the time how I felt about the over-attachment to brutalism and its modernist mystique among my friends and peers, but looking at this building today, I think fondly of our conversations.
I also can’t forget how this same urbanist whom I barely knew and was not in touch with stepped up to give my father blood when he needed a transfusion during his long years of treatment. When I thanked him again after dad passed, he simply said: “I did what any normal person would do.”