Girish Mahajan (Editor)

Yacoubian Building (Beirut)

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The Yacoubian building is a prominent commercial and residential edifice in Beirut, Lebanon. The building is located in Caracas neighborhood of Ras Beirut, in a prominent coastal strip of the Lebanese capital Beirut. The building belonged to a wealthy Lebanese Armenian named Yacoub Yacoubian.

The edifice is an enormous 10-story, double-bloc building with 140 flats. Unlike the colonial style of Cairo's Yacoubian Building, Beirut's counterpart comes shaped like a U-turn, copying the style of Le Corbusier. The building was famous for hosting a great number of artists, including singer Fayza Ahmed and comedian Abdel Salam Al Nabulsy. One floor underground was the venue of a famous Beirut night club called The Venus. During the Lebanese Civil War the Venus closed its doors and the Yacoubian building declined.

The then-chic and now run-down famous Beirut edifice is a metaphor of Beirut's old architectural heritage and is subjet of Spectrice (Yacoubian Building, Beirut) display and work of art commissioned in 2006-2008 and made of non-shrinking grout, aluminium, glass, fabric.

Beirut's Yacoubian Building is not to be confused with an equally important dominant edifice in Cairo, Egypt, called Yacoubian Building belonging to Hagop Yacoubian.

References

Yacoubian Building (Beirut) Wikipedia