Khoury’s presentation will begin with a reflection on the work he produced for the Seoul Architecture Biennale five years ago, titled Place Your Bets, Hold Your Bets. The piece reflects on Bernard Khoury’s practice in Beirut and across the region during the two decades preceding the 2019 collapse of Lebanon’s economic sector. The installation revolves around major political and financial events, including the crash of Lehman Brothers in September 2008, which led to the rise and celebration of Lebanon’s Central Bank governor, whose strategies were believed to have shielded the Lebanese economy from the effects of the global financial crisis.

Within this political and economic climate, Khoury’s practice expanded, resulting in 48 built commissions within Beirut’s city limits during that period—up until the catastrophic collapse of the local economy, which would later be described as a Ponzi scheme.

Khoury’s talk will first focus on the highly specific strategies he developed through his local practice, which largely revolved around financially speculative private-sector commissions. In counterpoint, the presentation will conclude with a selection of his international projects, most of which were commissioned by the public sector on foreign territories.

Bernard Khoury

Born in Beirut (1968). Bernard Khoury studied architecture at the Rhode Island school of Design (BFA 1990 / B.Arch 1991) and Harvard University (M.Arch 1993).

He was awarded by the municipality of Rome, the Borromini Prize honorable mention given to architects under 40 years of age (2001), the Architecture + Award (2004), the CNBC Award (2008) and nominated for several awards including the Aga Khan award (2002 / 2004/ 2021), the Chernikov prize (2010) and the Mies van der Rohe Award (2021).

He co-founded the Arab Center for Architecture (2008), was a visiting professor in several universities including the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne and L’Ecole Spéciale d’Architecture in Paris. He has lectured and exhibited his work in over 150 institutions, including solo shows at the Aedes gallery in Berlin (2003), the Spazio per l’architecttura Milano (2016) and numerous group shows including YOU prison at the Fondazione Sandretto in Torino (2008), the opening show of the MAXXI museum in Roma (2010), the Frac Architecture Biennale in Orleans (2018), the Oris House of Architecture in Zagreb (2020) and the Architecture Biennale of Seoul (2021).

He was the architect and co-curator of the Kingdom of Bahrain’s national pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale (2014). Over the years he has developed an international reputation and a diverse portfolio of projects in over fifteen countries. Khoury was nominated by the French Ministry of Culture Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres (2020)