City Centre (Samadi & Salha)

Notes

The City Center, a souk, movie theater (City Palace) and office building is symptomatic of a situation in which the building code unwittingly becomes a catalyst of distinguished architectural design. In the 1960s, the building code was strict about movie theaters, and law then forbade building above them for structural safety. As a result, they were naturally confined in basements, with open-air courts above. In a move to avoid any loss of space, Karam managed to convince the authorities that the law did not forbid the use of the space below the movie theaters, and he created a retail space underneath. Once the movie theater was raised and visible, he was forced to give it a distinguished shape, hence the concrete eggshell that became an unusual but important landmark on the Beirut skyline. The difficult formwork was drawn by Georges Kamel Abboud at J.P. Karam's office. Structural design by Noël Abouhamad. The 1000 seat egg-shaped cinema hall is 24 meters wide and 11 meters high.
The building next to the cinema hall was demolished and the cinema hall is threatened by development.
(George Arbid)

Sources

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