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Status

Built

Date

2017

Location

Rmeil, Beirut, Lebanon

Team
Fouad Samara
Lara Alam
Diala Yehia

The modern movement 

The St. George Church in Broumana is an iconic embodiment of the heroic period of the modern movement. Designed in 1964 by Samir Khairallah, one of Lebanon’s key architects of the 20th Century, the church is till today well used and loved by its community – a testimony to its successful design as a place of worship. In the 1980’s a less enlightened addition was made: an underground community hall with an undignified entrance and haphazard amenities.

Architectural response

The new annex pays tribute to the precise geometric order of the St George church in the form of a pure and minimal triangular volume at the base of the existing bell tower. It forms a strong and meaningful relationship to the church as it opens up to the axis of the symmetry and altar. The new structure is fully glazed on this side in a welcoming gesture, maintaining the openness of the church yard while the other two sides are clad in aluminum composite panels. Inside this triangular shell, the annex houses a remodeled entrance to the community hall below, an elevator within the bell tower itself, and an office for the parish priest to replace the temporary pre-engineered one currently on site.

The street facade is a double skin of perforated aluminum that features an abstraction of the scene of the Resurrection, a pivotal point in the story of Christ and a reflection of the use of the community hall as a venue for condolences.