Bernard Khoury is a Lebanese architect. He studied architecture at the Rhode Island school of Design and received a Masters in Architectural Studies from Harvard University. His work has been extensively published by the professional press. Khoury started an independent practice in 1993. Over the past fifteen years, his office has developed an international reputation and a significant diverse portfolio of projects both locally and abroad.
Background
Khalil Khoury, a Lebanese architect and designer, is his father. Khalil Khoury worked with exposed concrete and designed the Mont La Salle School Campus, the Municipal Stadium of Jounieh and the Interdesign Showroom building. Khoury’s father also produced work at differing scales ranging from the design and production of furniture items to his participation in the development of the master plan for the reconstruction of the Beirut Central District in 1977. Bernard Khoury lived in and out of Lebanon during the early years of the Civil War where he scarcely made it through secondary school, before pursuing his architectural studies in the United States of America. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1990, a Bachelor of Architecture in 1991 from the Rhode Island School of Design, and a Masters in Architectural Studies in 1993 from Harvard University.
Career
Khoury started his professional career soon after his graduate studies in post-war Beirut, which became his territory of experimentation where he produced 16 unbuilt projects spanning a period of four years. During the early years of his practice, he was financially supported by his family’s furniture manufacturing business that provided him with a design studio and gave him access to the workshop and manufacturing facilities of their factories. Khoury first came to public and critical attention with the completion of the in 1998, his first built project. This building sparked a string of temporary projects, through which Khoury built a reputation for his ability to produce critical interventions in problematic zones. These include his first six built projects: , , , the pavilion in Chtaura, as well as the . In the media, various publications dubbed Khoury "the bad boy" of architecture in the Middle East. Khoury's early clients came primarily from the entertainment industry. He then produced projects for local banks. His first international commission, the Pfefferberg Project, was in Berlin, Germany and consisted of the conversion of an industrial block into a cultural quarter. Aborted commissions followed in Europe, including the Santa Cesarea project in Italy, as well as residential projects in England, Spain and Serbia. He then worked on commissions such as the Tumo Center for Creative Technologies, the Tumo Park and the Epygi Park Master Plan in Yerevan, Armenia, as well as the AGBU NKR Campus in Nagorno-Karabakh. He has also worked in the Arab world. These comprise schemes in the Arabian Gulf region, such as the Fintas Market and the Andalus Development in Kuwait; the Alargan Business Bay Development and the Ajman Resort in the United Arab Emirates; Al Qurm Mixed Use Development in Oman; Surramanraa in Riyadh; and the Suspended Gardens of Manama in Bahrain. Khoury’s first permanent building, IB3, was completed in 2006. IB3 was followed by Plot # 732, Plot # 183 and Plot # 893, all of which engage their surrounding urban fabric. These were followed by the developments on Plots # 1314 and 2251 in Beirut, in which Khoury designed his own residence. Plot # 4371, a more recent residential project, allows its inhabitants to move their vehicles vertically within the buildings to park them in the center of their living room. Plot # 1282 is characterized by its thin slabs and openness on all orientations, stretching over 166 meters in length with a perimeter of 430 linear meters. Plot # 1072, Plot # 1342 and Plot # 450 are high rise residential developments. On a smaller scale, a number of Khoury's projects were produced mainly in the mountainous regions of Lebanon, including Plot # 7950, which houses 52 engines that operate its retractable roof, and Plot # 4328 with an accessible inclined façade culminating in a linear lap pool.
