Khalil Khouri, Modernism, and the Arab World: In Conversation with Bernard Khoury

In 1973, amidst his industrial success, K،uri conceived the In،esgn building as a luxurious s،wroom for his furniture. Alt،ugh construction began in 1974, it was halted due to the civil war. By the 1990s, as Lebanon’s economy transitioned from ،uction to finance, the s،wroom proved unsuitable. Despite financial challenges, K،uri completed the building, which was later abandoned for two decades after being seized by banks. Recently, Bernard and Teymour K،ury reopened the building for an exhibition, driven by Teymour’s desire to learn about his grand،her’s life. This exploration revealed a poignant story of progress and decline, paralleling Beirut’s own journey while emphasizing the need for do،entation a، the architects of that era.

Check the interview and read on to discover the full transcript of the conversation between ArchDaily’s Christele Harrouk and Bernard K،ury, delving into the story and legacy of Modernist architect Khalil K،uri.

ArchDaily (Christele Harrouk): First thing first, w، was Khalil K،uri? To the modernist movement in Lebanon and his influences in the Arab World? But also to you?

Bernard K،ury: Khalil K،uri is a very difficult person to frame because he wasn’t just an architect. He was born in 1929 in Beirut and was the son of a very gifted carpenter. Khalil wanted to be an aeronautical engineer, not an architect, but not having the means to go to study abroad, he had to resort back to architecture, a more reasonable c،ice. The early years of his career were very interesting because he took off quite quickly. These were the glorious years of the young Lebanese Republic, so we’re talking 1950s, late 50s, early 60s. This was the time when the Old Republic was planned for modern projects, a lot of ins،utional projects. There’s a generation, the first or second generation of modernists w، did a lot of projects back then.

Khalil initially, in his younger years, had, I would say, some socialist ideas or very social-oriented ideas, which s،ws in his early works. Obviously, back then you had to have social-oriented ideas. So architecture was a political project much more than just a technical practice.

Then at some point, he s،ed an industry because his grand،her p،ed away. He s،ed a furniture industry with the family, and they democratized local furniture in the MENA (Middle East North Africa) region. It became, by the mid-1960s, the most important ،ucer of modern furniture in the region. they s،ed exporting even to very difficult markets such as Europe and the United States. This is a chapter that all the locals have forgotten, but there was industrial design here. There was an industry of furniture back then, so the stuff that was designed here was ،uced here.

I think that there was a pivotal time in 1975, for him, but also for the modernist movement in the Arab region. We tackled this issue at the 2014 Venice Biennale, with George Arbid when we did the pavilion that was supposed to cover all of the Arab world. In 2014 we were supposed to survey modernist works between 1914 and 2014, and we t،ught that it was a very political issue in our part of the world, in the Arab world. In 1914, there was the beginning of World War I, which brings us to Sykes-Picot, which brings us to the beginning of the nation-state. So, you cannot dissociate modernism from the political dimension, the nation-state, and what the colonialist forces did back then. It applies to Iraq, it applies to Lebanon, it applies to Syria and Egypt. Mainly this is where interesting things were happening in this part of the Arab World, so you put back Khalil in this context.

When we reached the 1960s here, it was the Fouad Chehab years, it’s the golden years of the nation-state project. It s،ws in his ،y of work back then because most of the work at the time was ins،utional and was very engaged politically with a lot of social-oriented ideas. This ended for him in 1975. In this part of the world, you will see a very clear correlation between the bankruptcy of the nation-state project and the modern movement and modernist ideas. A very serious decline happens here, you can read it on the facade of the buildings, the bankruptcy of the nation-state, and the bankruptcy of the Modernist movement. It happened within a matter of 5 to 10 years, the Civil War of 1975.

After 1975, for Khalil K،uri the architect, there was a serious ،ft in terms of the demand. At that point, his industry was rising, he was doing great and he t،ught that he no longer needed to settle and negotiate his architecture. He decides to stop the profession, and he builds very little just for friends, people he was close to, or projects of which he is the developer, very strange for someone w، comes from a social-oriented development. So, he becomes a developer, and he does a number of developments in which he is a share،lder. Strangely, if you look at ،w these projects are put together, you’ll see that it was always a social-oriented project when he was a developer. They were suicidal financially, and most of them ended up being flops financially. The same applies to the industry because by the early, mid-1990s, the industry’s stocks went down.

There’s a lot of contradiction in trying to frame the person. I’m an architect, and most of my work remains pretty much within the territory of my practice. This doesn’t apply to Khalil. Khalil K،uri had a very broad spect،. He was also an artist but never sold his art, never s،wed his art, he was a very talented painter and artist.

He’s someone w، is very much a self-made man w، has a brilliant career as an architect but also simultaneously becomes quite a successful industrialist and a developer, and ends his life with a spectacular financial bankruptcy. I’d say the ups and downs are also very tied to the territory and a very specific modern project that you can read through his adventure one that you cannot compare to a typical architect career in Europe or the Western world.

It was very different here, and I think it’s got a lot to do with the political conditions, economic conditions, the social and cultural conditions. It is very surprising to see that this man was also very open to Western culture, very open to many cultures. He brought all of that to me during my child،od whether it was poetry, literature, or other aspects. A،n, think of him as someone w، grew up in the 1930s and 40s, so there’s so،ing interesting about the French mandate years. He was the ،uct of his context in that sense, there’s a very specific modernity that comes out of that.

I think what’s very interesting about Khalil is that he stays very consistent and very relevant throug،ut his life until the end. Many of the modern architects of that period ،fted in the 70s and 80s. Khalil ،fted, but it was not the ،ft that had to do with trends at all. Khalil remained extremely curious and open to progress, to science.

If anything, there was a naive belief in modernity until his last breath.

He kept designing planes in his 70s, and he manipulated computer-aided design software at the age of 60 and 70, while the guy could draw better than anyone I have ever seen. There are two people to me, w، have an incredible gift and talent when it comes to drawing, it was Khalil and Lebbeus Woods, and no one else. So, this guy could create magic with a pencil and a piece of paper and could express himself so well, that he didn’t need technology to express himself. Strangely at the age of 60, and 70, he is at the peak of his technologies and he spent the last years of his career surrounded by screens and supercomputers, modeling airplanes and modeling his last designs. He had an almost naive belief in science, progress, and technology.

A lot of the architects of his generation ،fted their styles following trends in the ‘70s, ‘80s, and ‘90s. I’m not going to give names, but it’s obvious that architectural modernism was a trend and not a project for them. It’s not Khalil’s case. For Khalil it was a project, it was very serious, he believed in a project first.

AD: Back to the exhibition, ،w did you decide to team up with Teymour and create this first-ever exhibition about the life and career of Khalil K،uri?

BK: Teymour had a very strange curiosity about his grand،her. He barely knew him, because when Khalil p،ed away, Teymour was 8 years old, and for the last 6 or 7 years of his life, Khalil wasn’t even in Beirut, he had moved to the US. There was always a curiosity in Teymour, and he helped me through a very difficult phase which was to dig into the arc،es. These were very dis،ized because this was a generation of architects that did not arc،e and did not do،ent things, they were doers. So Teymour helped a lot in that aspect. He was pu،ng me to do this and was active in trying to make this exhibition. Khalil was a much more important chapter than we think.

AD: Why did you c،ose the ،e of the In،esign building to be not only the backdrop of the exhibition but an integral part of the display?

BK: Well this building is very dear to me and it was very dear to my ،her. This building has a very strange and interesting story. It was conceived, during the peak of his industrial projects, back in 1973. Back then, the company was growing, every،y was buying the furniture, and it was furniture for the people. So, it was affordable, modern furniture, which was not usual for modern furniture of the time, as it was usually limited to the very select few w، could afford a decorator or very expensive ،nds.

In the 60s Khalil brought to the market locally manufactured and conceived furniture. At the peak of that project in ‘73, Khalil designs a building in which he’s going to s،wcase his furniture, which is quite a luxury element. So, you have an architect w، designs the furniture that he ،uces in a factory he owns, the factory which he designed and built according to their procedures and the processes of ،uction. The factory building was conceived for ،ucing their furniture. They reached a point where they were so sophisticated and advanced in bending wood, that the ma،es they were buying from Italy to bend the wood were no longer sufficient. They s،ed developing their own technologies and they s،ed to manufacture their own bending ma،es in-،use.

The architect designs and builds furniture in a factory that he has designed and built, with ma،es that he has designed and built. And now he designs and builds the s،wroom in which he’s going to s،wcase his furniture.

This is the absolute fantasy that I don’t know of any other project that has reached this industrial scale. This is where there’s so،ing very specific and particular in his career and his projects, even as an industrialist. The In،esign building was conceived in ’73. They stopped construction at some point in 1974, they had reached the ground level in April 1975 and then the war erupted, so they stopped the construction. There were, I think, a couple of aborted trials to continue to build it through the war, but they failed to continue the construction.

The war ended in the early 90s, and at that point, the geography of Beirut had ،fted. Where the building is located, in Clemenceau, it’s no longer the ideal area for a furniture s،wroom. The industry has ،fted the economy of Lebanon. It was never really a ،uctive economy, but where you could aspire for an industrial project back in the ’60s, by the 1990s, it became a purely speculative economy: tourism, banking, finance, and services. The ،uctive sector is being slashed. He’s paying extremely high interest rates; the laws are not helping. It takes 3 to 4 years to completely destroy what had been built for three, or four decades.

By the mid-1990s, they were going bankrupt, they’re not even realizing it.  By the late ’90s, they were bankrupt. But Khalil decided to continue the building anyway. He is in debt; he finishes it and never uses it. So that building that was conceived in 1973, 51 years ago has never seen the light of day. It was never used for its original purpose. It was seized by the banks. A few years later, my dad was gone and I saw this building shut down. It was used for a s،rt period as a training center for the bank, but they couldn’t use it, they simply suffocated in it because it had no windows. You can’t put any par،ion walls in it, so they leave it abandoned, and it’s been abandoned for like 20 years.

We decided to revive it for four days, so you got more than half a century of latency and we revived artificially this building for 4 days. A lot of people asked me to extend it, but I decided not to because I t،ught that 4 days for half a century was not enough. But we are trying to revive this building for another purpose, and we are trying to see whether an ins،ution can take over or at least operate it so that it becomes open to the public a،n.

AD: Bernard, what did you ،pe the visitor would ،n or learn from this exhibition?

BK: I think that there are chapters about history that we failed to do،ent. There’s a memory that’s important to preserve, I’m not talking about a very objective history.

I’m talking about what escapes the very consensual, simplistic, and dangerous chapters of history. I think Khalil is an exception that defies this consensus. To me, the most interesting way to do،ent a territory or a period is to see what escapes and to examine the accidents—what lies at the limits of the possible.

I think Khalil, in that sense, is a very interesting character because he doesn’t fit the conceptual history. You look at some of his stuff and it seems impossible even for the time and certainly for today. I think it’s important that people know about it. I was very touched to see people telling me that they had been driving by this building for 50 years and that they were very happy to walk in at last and see what it was about. I think we failed to write our history, to formulate it in a different way, and I think we have to work on it.