For the second consecutive year, Banque Libano-Française is pleased to share with you every month an iconic building from the modern architecture in Lebanon built between 1930 and 1975.

This project was made possible thanks to the enriching collaboration with the Arab Center for Architecture and its Director George Arbid.

National Museum of Antiquities

1930-1942

Antoine Nahas / Pierre Leprince-Ringuet

When confronted to give a style to the National Museum of Antiquities, the identity issue came to the front. As a result of a competition launched in 1927-28, the Museum was designed by Leprince-Ringuet a French architect and Nahas who was his student in Paris.

Construction began in 1930, the museum was opened to the public in 1938, and it was officially inaugurated in 1942.

The museum had been favored by the jury for its efficient layout and sedate monumentality. What is considered by many as a building in Egyptian-Pharaonic style mostly due to the entrance columns with lotiform capitals is in fact the result of a ricochet effect; the Lebanese under French Mandate were looking at Paris, and the French capital had been looking since the mid-1920s at Egypt for its stylistic Art-Deco references.