The Niemeyer Guest House in Tripoli, Lebanon has been named one of the six winners of the 2022 Aga Khan Award for Architecture. All photos: Cemal Emden / Aga Khan Trust for Culture
Since its opening, the guest house has hosted several shows and promotes collaborations between established Lebanese designers and local artisans.
The outdoor space of the Niemeyer Guest House.
The central atrium surrounded by the exhibition space, where furniture samples are tested and made available for public use.
A paved concrete pathway leads the visitors discreetly towards the building entrance.
Minjara, as the guest house is now called, offers access, free of charge, to a state-of-the-art carpentry workshop.
Conceived as an open production laboratory, the workshop and its auxiliary technical spaces infiltrate the western wing of the building.
All furniture used and displayed in the guest house is entirely designed and built at the Minjara workshop.
The blank facades reveal a beautiful interior space lit by a square atrium.
The concrete diagrid covering the courtyards allows sunlight to enter the interior spaces without glare.
The building is centred around an open central atrium planted with local reed species.
The guest house's glass doors can be opened or closed depending on privacy needs and the desire to access the courtyard.
A view of the guest house's surroundings and material library.
The horizontal concrete structure with a windowless facade.
The central courtyard with new glazed partitions.
Defined by a series of lightweight steel and glass panels registering the ceiling's rhythmic structural grid, the new flexible partition seamlessly connects all functions to each other and to the central courtyard beyond.
The guest house exposes an elongated profile with its 58-metre main facade, of low height, set on a flat field amid lush green grass.
The Niemeyer Guest House is now a design platform and production centre for the local wood industry.
The guest house plan. Photo: East Architecture Studio
Niemeyer guest house in Tripoli, Lebanon - in pictures
