About The Competition

Banque Libano-Française was looking for an outstanding architect who will be capable to understand, internalize and interpretate the company’s values and ambitions for the new Headquarters that will be settled in Beirut. This is an international two-stages search started in September 2015 that encompasses both well known designers and emerging talents. The first stage carried out a trim process of selection of eight design Offices among 30 international firms, previously called by Banque Libano-Française for their proven skills along the years and met individually each Office in its headquarters. During the second stage of BLF New Headquarters International Competition, from January to April 2016, the eight finalists will have the opportunity and the responsability of expressing the new identity of Banque Libano-Française with a special attention to its traditions and values by proposing a visionary urban catalyst able to activate transformations in a city and an industry that are changing incessantly. The Headquarters must be considered as a sensitive urban landmark, able to dialogue with the very delicate urban and social context of Beirut and, at the same time, an architecture able to enhance the work organisation quality, optimize the internal productivity, improve the working environment of Banque Libano-Française community and arouse creativity and innovation. The BLF new Headquarters must be able to define a diffused ground floor quality connecting with the urban pre-existing condition and, at the same time, able to assert an impressive public quality of its indoor and outdoor spaces.

The Site

Plot 659 is located in the District of Medawar overlooking on north the coastal running thoroughfare and main entrance to Beirut Charles Helou Avenue, that divides the site from the very sparsely populated littoral Quarantine district to the Medawar district. The plot faces to the west the modernist landmark Electricité du Liban Headquarters, designed in the 1966 by Pierre Neema, while on the East the plot is adjacent to Plot 159 where a new project is under planning. The district developed residentially during the late 19th century with a strong traditional architectural character, nowadays presents itself as an art incubator neighbourhood with plenty of important art galleries, design firms and graphic offices as well as restaurants, pubs and coffee shops.

Barozzi Veiga

is an architectural office devoted to architecture and urbanism, founded in 2004 in Barcelona by Fabrizio Barozzi and Alberto Veiga. Has won numerous prizes in national and international competitions among them: the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award, International FAD Award and European Architectural Heritage Award in 2015, Design Vanguard Award in 2014, Young Talent of Italian Architecture in 2013, Best Young Catalan Office and Young Architect of the Year Leaf Award by Emirates Glass with RIBA in 2007.

Big

is a group of architects, designers and thinkers operating within the fields of architecture, urbanism, research and development with offices in Copenhagen and New York City. BIG’s recently won the World Architecture Award in Cultural Category, the RIBA Award, AIA National Regional & Urban Planning Honor Award, AIA NY Project Merit Award, AIA National Architecture Honor Award, MIPIM AR Future Award Big Urban Projects, DETAIL Award, American Planning Association Creativity & Ingenuity in Planning, Rethinking the Future Award Mixed-Use Concept, First Award, between others.

Farshid Moussavi Architecture

is a London-based international architectural practice founded in 2011 by the award-winning architect and professor Farshid Moussavi. Received numerous awards with her previous practice (FOA) including the Enric Miralles Prize for Architecture, six RIBA Awards, the 2004 Venice Architecture Biennale Award and the Charles Jencks Award for Architecture.

Kengo Kuma

Founded in 1990 by the pluri-awarded Japanese architect Kengo Kuma is an office with two branches in Tokyo and Paris. The principal aim of their architectural approach reside into the research of a special equilibrium between the material space and the environment, blending wisely architecture and nature features.

Nabil Gholam Architects

Principal Nabil Gholam, ex Associated at Ricardo Bofill’s Taller de Arquitectura, has set up in 1994 the Beirut-based office after having worked and traveled around the world since his graduation. Between the many awards lately the Firm received the Architectural Review MIPIM Future Project Awards 2015, a special mention for the German Design Awards 2015, the Iconic Design Awards in 2014 and the Green Good Design Award in 2012.

Piuarch

was established in 1996 in Milan, the brainchild of its four founding partners Francesco Fresa, Germàn Fuenmayor, Gino Garbellini and Monica Tricario. Piuarch’s projects take form from the recuperation of industrial areas to public buildings, complexes for residential and office purposes and town planning. The Firm received many prizes, between others: 2013 Architect of the year by National Order of the Italian Architects, in 2012 and 2009 the Honorable Mention for the Gold Medal for Italian Architecture.

Snøhetta

began as a collaborative architectural and landscape workshop, and has remained true to its trans-disciplinary way of thinking since its inception in 1989. Today, Snøhetta has grown to become an internationally renowned practice of architecture, landscape and interior architecture and brand design. Comprised of two main studios, in Oslo, Norway and New York, USA and have been plentifully awarded from 2004 until nowadays.

Youssef Tohme

The Beirut-based office that seeks to create “an infinite chain of exchange between the builders and the users” was found by Youssef Tohme in 2008 with two partners Anastasia Elrouss and Roger Akoury. Winner of the Urbanism Prize of the Architecture French Academy in 2015, curator of the Biennale of Architecture, Planning and Design in Bordeaux Agora 2014, winner in 2013 of “Brazza” competition, and winner of the Young Arab Architects Competition in Paris (CA’ASI, Institut du Monde Arabe) for the design of the Innovation Economy and Sports Campus in 2012.

Raya Raphael Nahas

Member of the Board of Directors since April 2010, she serves as General Manager of the Bank since September 2014. Mrs. Nahas began her career in banking at Banque Libano-Française in 1997 as a Financial Analyst and subsequently, has taken responsibilities in project finance, investment banking, retail banking and bancassurance. She was elected member of the Board of Directors and appointed Deputy General Manager in March 2010. Mrs. Nahas is an active Member of LIFE (Lebanese International Finance Executive). She chairs the Beirut Chapter and the Promote Piller of this non-profit association that aims to promote networking between Lebanese working in the financial field. Mrs. Nahas received a degree in Economics and a Masters in Financial Management from Paris-Dauphine University (France) and a Masters diploma in Money, Banking and Finance from Panthéon-Sorbonne University (France).

Walid Raphael

Chairman of the Board of Directors since September 2014 and General Manager of the Bank since March 2010, Chairman and General Manager of Libano-Française Finance and Member of the Board of Banque SBA and LF Finance (Suisse), Mr. Raphaël began his banking career in 1995 at Credit Agricole Indosuez, where he held several positions in both Paris and London, in the International Project Finance Department and in capital markets covering emerging markets. He joined the General Management of the Bank in 2004 and was elected member of the Board of Directors and appointed Deputy General Manager in March 2006. Mr. Raphaël received a Masters degree in Law from Panthéon-Assas University (France), a Masters diploma in Banking and Financial Law from Panthéon-Sorbonne University (France), and a MBA from INSEAD (France).

Luca Molinari

Luca Molinari is an architect, critic and associate professor of History and Theory of Contemporary Architecture at SUN (Seconda Università degli Studi) in Naples and at Cornell University College of Architecture, Art, and Planning in Rome. Luca Molinari runs a consulting and curatorial studio, Luca Molinari Architecture Consulting & Curatorship, a Milan-based multidisciplinary firm involved in the creation, curatorship and management of architecture competitions, exhibitions and editorial projects through tailored-made processes whose aim is to shape and communicate content, identity and strategic objectives both public and private customers on an international scale. Graduated in the Faculty of Architecture at Polytechnic of Milan, PHD at TU Delft Faculty of Architecture. He has been awarded by the X Venice Biennale of Architecture with “Ernesto N. Rogers prize” as best Italian architectural critic (2006) and with the UIA Jean Tschumi Prize for architectural criticism (2008) and curator of Italian Pavilion at XII Biennale of Architecture in Venice.

Jean Christophe Fromentin

Jean-Christophe Fromantin is the Mayor of Neuilly-sur-Seine and a Member of the French parliament and vice-president in charge of economy for the district of Paris-Ouest-La Défense. He has therefore launched the official projectfor the application of France to the 2025 World Expo and he is President of the official committee in charge of the French candidature for the 2025 World Expo. Entrepreneur in the international trading field, he was the founder of different successful companiesand is among the few businessmen in the French parliament. His background leads him to take an active part in the Bugdet Bill making process (Projet de loi de Finances).In 2012, he creates the “PLF Entrepreneurs” working group, in order to involve entrepreneurs in the financial and economic legislative debate. This work has proved to be very successful, and gathers all-size company managers and investors to make them work with members of parliaments on economic and tax issues.

Hashim Sarkis

Hashim Sarkis is Dean of the School of Architecture and Planning at MIT. Prior to that he was at Harvard University Graduate School of Design (GSD) as the The Aga Khan Professor of Landscape Architecture and Urbanism. Dean Sarkis is principal architect in the Cambridge and Beirut based firm, Hashim Sarkis Studios, founded in 1998. His architectural and planning projects include affordable housing, institutional buildings, and town planning throughout the globe. His current projects include the recently completed Byblos Town Hall—for which he has received a First Prize Award—and the Courtowers which is under construction. Dean Sarkis has a Bachelor of Architecture and Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Rhode Island School of Design and a Master of Architecture from Harvard University GSD. He received his Ph.D. in Architecture from Harvard University GSD for his thesis Publics and Architects: Re-Engaging Design in the Democracy.

LiBrian Zhang

Zhang Li (a.k.a. Li Brian Zhang / Brian Chang) is a Professor of Architecture, Chair of the Architecture Department in the School of Architecture at Tsinghua University in China. He leads the design practice Atelier TeamMinus in Beijing. He is currently a board member of the Architectural Society of China and the Editor-in-Chief of the leading Chinese magazine World Architecture. Zhang Li’s research focuses on pre-industrial oriental philosophy and its contemporary reinterpretation. Besides his teaching in China, he has also been: Excellence PhD Course Professor, Polytechnic University of Turin (2013), Professor of Practice, Syracuse University (2012), Master Studio Professor, National University of Singapore (2010). Zhang Li and TeamMinus have completed a variety of buildings and urban regeneration projects in China, and have been published internationally.