Christian Zahr

Christian Zahr studied architecture at the Academie Libanaise des Beaux Arts, Beirut, Lebanon. After graduating in 2003, he interned at Ateliers Jean Nouvel Paris (2004) before going back to Beirut and working for renowned Lebanese architectural firms. In 2012 he founded Studio Christian Zahr, where he develops his practice as an independent architect, landscape designer, object designer and artist. Moving between these scales allows him to blur the boundaries between these different realms with the obsession to create a new language. Zahr’s work as a designer was showcased in several exhibitions such as Post-it in La Galerie de L’Architecture - Paris (2004), Beirut Design Week in Beyt Beirut Museum (2018), 1000 Vases in Dubai Design District (2019). 

Forma Urbis 

Christian Zahr delves deeply into La Vitrine’s historical location during the Roman era which was the entrance to the Decumanus Maximus of Berytus (known today as Beirut). In his installation Forma Urbis wall fragments extracted from nearby twentieth-century buildings which were demolished in the post-war years are stacked up to form an ancient fluted column replica. With its antiquated shape and crude physicality— a tower made out of differently colored layers of old sandstone and concrete — this fictional installation redolent of ruins creates an environment that seems to be in search of its place in time, a situation in which the spectator is confronted with ideas and images of the imminent change of the urban landscape and could allude to nature and our urban heritage.

La Vitrine is supported by AFAC - Arab Fund for Art & Culture