Gefinor

1969-1974

Victor Gruen and Walid Jabry

Located in Ras Beirut, the Gefinor Center was at its opening one of the largest business and shopping centers in the Middle East with 55,000 sq.m. of retail and office space.

The five blocks, consisting of a twenty-storey tower, three six-storey buildings, and a three-storey block, surround a piazza adjoining a street that crosses the complex and joins Rue Maamari and Rue Clemenceau located at different levels.

The architect, Victor Gruen, pioneer of pedestrian malls in the USA, designed here a permeable urban piece served by wide gallerias and stairs leading from the streets to the main piazza that acts as a communal public space.

With is refined materials, sleek facades exuding a sense of prestige and a wide suspended spiral stair wrapping like a ribbon, Gefinor represents well the elegant modernism of Beirut in the 1970s.