Renovation of Niemeyer Guest House | East Architecture Studio

Designed in 1962 by renowned Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer but abandoned on the brink of completion when civil war erupted in 1975, the Rachid Karami International Fair was recently added to UNESCO’s World Heritage tentative list. One of its 15 pavilions, the Guest House was chosen to be transformed into a design platform and production facility promoting Tripoli’s long-established, pioneering but latterly declining wood industry. Informed by examination of similar but completed Niemeyer projects, the interventions – all reversible – principally comprise: adding flexible, transparent steel-and-glass partitions that echo the ceiling’s rhythmic structural grid; concealing structural elements behind locally sourced plywood panelling; and introducing electro-mechanical features, including custom-made lighting again based on the ceiling grid. The fluid, cyclical programme leads seamlessly from reception space to material library, co-working space and workshop. The project has boosted the industry’s presence nationally and internationally, and spurred work on a conservation plan for the entire site.

Aga Khan Award for Architecture Winner 2022

Master Jury Citation

“The renovation of the Niemeyer Guest House is an inspiring tale of architecture’s capacity for repair, at a time of dizzying, entangled crisis around the world, and in Lebanon in particular, as the country faces unprecedented political, socio-economic and environmental collapse. Located on the outskirts of Tripoli – one of the oldest and most beautiful port-cities, once renowned for its craft but today ravaged by extreme poverty, migration and lack of public space – the rehabilitation of the Guest House is part of the Rachid Karami International Fair (RKIF), the unfinished masterpiece of the architect Oscar Niemeyer.

Commissioned to showcase the young nation, the fair’s construction was halted by the outbreak of civil war in 1975, and subsequently abandoned to disrepair, dispute and abortive competitions, while continuing to spark the imagination of artists and architects in Lebanon and around the world. The Niemeyer Guest House renovation is a hopeful first burgeoning of a meaningful revival of the fair’s structures, modelling exemplary restoration of Modernist heritage while inviting a new public life for the future of this unique site.

The project has been carried out with great precision, its high quality revealing the exhaustive research the architects undertook. A sensitive understanding of the fair’s specific architectural language is carefully deployed to revive this important architectural and urban heritage. The architects’ particular concern for self-containment as well as success in crafting custom details that can be removed is admirable in ensuring reversibility of use for the structure in the future.

In this carefully crafted space, reverence for the “hand” is perpetuated through the proposed programme: an active wood workshop sustaining small-scale carpentry and reviving the city’s history of craft. The project regenerates much-needed micro-economies and advocates inclusiveness, inviting the surrounding community into its heart. It reveals how paramount it is today to consider architectural rehabilitation and socio-economic revival as an indivisible whole.

It is our hope that this award can celebrate the collaborative work behind this project and become the first step towards exemplary, careful rehabilitation and adaptive reuse for the rest of the fair site.”

Amale Andraos and Sibel Bozdogan (co-chairs), Nada Al Hassan, Kazi Khaleed Ashraf, Kader Attia, Lina Ghotmeh, Francis Kéré, Anne Lacaton, Nader Tehrani

Program
Wood Industry Platform & Design Hub

Build-Up Area
1,900 sqm

Location
Rachid Karami International Fair, Tripoli, Lebanon

Status
Built

Year
2018