BUILDINGS TEXTS:

1 Building Name: ETOILE (Fransabank Headquarters, previously Banque Sabbagh) Architects: Alvar Aalto and Alfred Roth Date of Construction: 1966 Floors: 16 (+5 underground) Use: Fransabank headquarters, Offices, Retail, Café

As one of the latest structures built in the office building/cinema typology on Hamra Street, the layout of this building reinterprets the “walk-in courtyard” as a plaza in front of the tower. By doing so, the architects create both a welcoming public space bounded tightly with the street and the L shape canopy, and an interior retail street on both “ground floors” connecting Rome Street to Hamra Street. On the North facade, the use of deep vertical mullions as vertical shading devices is proof of a mature curtain wall design technique. The dramatic difference between the more organic South façade and the plain North façade might be a result of the collaboration between Aalto and Roth (it is suspected that Swiss Roth designed the rational front façade, while Finnish Aalto concocted the angled back façade.) The luxurious Etoile Cinema that used to occupy the auditorium below plaza is now shut down, but the interior retail streets and the corner plaza still function well to bring people into the building.

2 Building Name: SAROULLA Architect: Karol Schayer Date of Construction: 1961 Floors: 12 (+2 underground) Use: Offices, Commercial, Theater

The Saroulla is one of the few office buildings which regained its dynamism after the war, especially since the Al Madina Theater opened in place of the Saroulla Cinema at its base, in 2007. To achieve an active street life, the landlord Rachid Boueiri insured the new Dunkin Donuts Cafe would pay old rent in exchange for supporting the Gilar Bookstore. For the theater, Boueiri rejected a high rent offered by the Eldorado shopping center, opting to affordably rent the space out to Nidal Achkar, the iconic owner of the Madina Theater, in exchange for its renovation. The landlord’s social and cultural awareness enables the revival of this modernist building.

3 Building Name: MURR (Horseshoe) Architect: Makdisi, Schayer & Adib Date of Construction: 1958 Floors: 9 (+1 underground) Use: Commercial, Offices

The Horseshoe Building takes after its predecessor to its east, the Al Hamra Building, by aligning with its slabs and advancing into a full curtain wall system. The ground floor of the Murr building is subdivided into a few small businesses. Today, it comprises seven small stores including Duke Eatery, a café with no glass enclosure that is open to the sidewalk space. At the corner, Costa Café replaced the infamous Horseshoe. The opening of the Horseshoe Café in 1959 by Munah Dabaghi marked the first sidewalk café on Hamra Street. Horseshoe attracted Arab intellectuals and opposition leaders spending years in exile in Beirut. It was frequented by writers, poets, actors, activists and artists (such as Amjad Nasser, Unsi al-Haj, Raymond Jbara, Rafic Sharaf, Munah al-Soloh, Nidal al-Ashkar, Juliana Saroufin, Ghada al-Samman, Paul Guiragossian…). In 1969 the Lebanese authorities banned the controversial play “Henri Hamati”. As an act of defiance, the main actor Nidal al-Ashkar performed the play to the public at the café’s sidewalk.

4 Building Name: M. ARIDA (Cinema al-Hamra)
Architect: Georges Rais Date of Construction: 1956 Floors: 9 (+1 underground) Use: Cinema, retail, and office

The Cinema al-Hamra played both Lebanese and international films in an 800-seat, modern interior. The North-facing orientation of the al-Hamra building enabled its façade to be among the earliest examples of the glass curtain wall in Lebanon. Since this technology was largely untested in Beirut, Georges Rais designed the floor plates to extrude outwards, permitting window washers to stand perilously on the building’s face. Today the cinema remains vacant, its former lobby has been subdivided into two multiple street-front cafes.

5 Building Name: PICADILLY Architect: William Sednaoui Date of Construction: 1965 Floors: 9 (+2 underground) Use: Theatre, retail, and office

The Piccadilly Theatre was among Hamra’s most famous and glamorous venues for nearly three decades, hosting many fashionable Lebanese actors and musicians (including Ziad Rahbani’s popular plays on Lebanese wars and society). During the civil war, the theatre closed and opened intermittently, depending on current events; but theatre attendance ultimately dwindled by the late 1980s. Despite shifting popularity, there was still hope for the Piccadilly to be revived as late as the 1990s, but these hopes were dashed when the theatre caught fire in 2000.

6 Building Name: ELDORADO Architect: N/A Date of Construction: N/A Floors: 8 (+4 underground) Use: retail stores, unoccupied office building.

While all cinemas on Hamra street were shut down and left unoccupied post civil war, the Eldorado cinema was exceptionally transformed into an underground shopping center in the year 2000, selling discounted multi-brand clothing. Although the valuable original identity of the architecture was lost, the theater’s space and proportions contribute to a dramatic spatial experience for shopping, one of the main leisure activities for Beirut’s contemporary city dwellers.

7 Building Name: PAVILLON Architect: N/A Year: 1960s Floors: 8 (+3 underground) Use: Hotel, retail, office, former cinema

Following its construction, the Pavillon thrived as a hotel and cinema. As similar destinations proliferated along nearby Hamra Street, the Pavillon struggled to attract customers. Its less central location just off of Hamra Street became a center for various socially illicit behaviors (including taboo gay encounters.) The cinema began showing pornographic films in the late 80s, its hotel started taking hourly reservations, and its interior corridor became a place for sex workers to meet audiences after a showing. Today, however, the stairs to the cinema is covered, the hotel is boarded up, and many businesses have left the interior corridor.

8 Building Name: STRAND Architect: Robert Wakim Date of Construction: 1964 Floors: 7 (+5 underground) Use: Commercial, Offices and Residential

The building is composed of two wings, an office block along Hamra Street and a residential block along quieter Jeanne d’Arc Street, with a shared core and a commercial base. The Strand building is iconic for its aluminum façade meant to veil the structure from the southern sun exposure and to cover heating and cooling pipes. However, its cultural significance goes beyond mere aesthetics. During its peak, the Strand building was a center for commercial and cultural gatherings, with a clear passage linking Hamra Street to Jeanne d’Arc Street (which in turn starts at the American University of Beirut’s Main Gate), allowing more accessibility to the shops, the open air courtyard, and the cinema. The latter was the first in the Arab world to screen Omar Al Charif’s “Doctor Zhivago.“ Today, the theater is hidden within the MAX discount department store at the eastern portion of the ground floor on Hamra Street.