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A High-Tech Bank

One example of this is the Banque du Liban et d'Outre-Mer (BLOM), located in a prominent part of Beirut. The BLOM building communicates an aura of genuine bank headquarters. It stands as a landmark in its urban context and conveys symbolic messages of service, organization, and security.

The bank stands on a triangular site formed by intersecting streets. The building code forbade complete site coverage; part of it had to be given over to greenery or open space. However difficult it was to build to the pointed corner of the site, the architect preferred to include it in the building and use it for vertical circulation, rather than abandon it. El Khoury provided the required open space in a significant setback from the main street.

Near the pointed corner, an external pylon bears steel beams that pierce the curtain wall to support the staircase landings inside. Although this portion of the building is a single volume, the corner stands out as a transparent prism in glass and steel, contrasting with the adjacent block of solid-green stone. Panoramic glass elevators toward the back of the prism make internal circulation enjoyable and animated by panoramic views.

The building resembles the prow of a ship, an effect heightened by the curtain-wall elevations and the tubular structure behind them. When the building is lit at night, the glazing disappears, making the naked structure look like a platform at sea.

The central core of the building was carved out to create a covered semicircular courtyard, which extends the full height of the building and which brings natural light to the lowest levels. The circular office of the director cantilevers out from the upper level of the main elevation to express on the outside the nature of the courtyard inside.

At the street level, a semicircular recessed window expresses the public hall inside. The gray granite of the facade changes color and texture from the ground floor to the upper levels, differentiating between the public bank functions below and the administrative offices above.

Such elements in the facade are not, in my opinion, an affectation but a subtle work of unity, a remarkable mastery of detailing and execution, helping the building resolve paradoxical adjacencies of public and private spaces.

The 97,000-square-foot (9000-square-meter) building was constructed in 1993 and added to with a 234,000-square-foot (21,700-square-meter) extension in 1998. The extension stands as an independent building but also as a continuation — ;in form and alignment — of the first building. Although connected by a bridge on the 8th floor, the two buildings are separated on the ground level by a piazza hosting the main entrance to the whole complex.

The piazza leads to a large shopping area within the first two floors of the extension. All the upper floors are used for open-plan offices, while underground are several levels of parking garage.   >>>

View from street level of the 8th-floor bridge between the original Banque du Liban et d'Outre-Mer (BLOM) and its later extension, both by Lebanese architect Pierre El Khoury. Photo: Courtesy Pierre El Khoury The interior void between the upper floors of the BLOM building. Photo: Courtesy Pierre El Khoury Space between the first BLOM building and its extension. Photo: Courtesy Pierre El Khoury The passage at the 8th floor between the first building and the newer extension of the bank. Photo: Courtesy Pierre El Khoury A typical floor of the bank and its extension. Image: Pierre El Khoury Ground floor of the BLOM building. Image: Pierre El Khoury BLOM has a shopping piazza on the first two floors, open-plan offices on the upper floors, and several levels of underground parking garage. Image: Pierre El Khoury Northwest elevation. Image: Pierre El Khoury   Click on thumbnail images to view full-size pictures.