Historical Context:Built in 1924 by the Lebanese architect Youssef Afandi Aftimos and raised by two further floors by the architect Fouad Kozah in 1932, the neo-ottoman style building known as the “Yellow House” or the “Barakat Building” stands on the crossroad of Damascus street and Independence street. The name of the Yellow House comes from the ochre-colored sandstone used for its construction. The Yellow House comprises two bourgeois style houses, four-stories high plus a roof terrace. The central axis of the building is completely open to the sky. It leads to the main entrance and a front courtyard giving access to the staircases up to the properties and a passageway under the building that leads to the leafy rear courtyard. The facades of the two buildings are joined by raised columns, decorated with fine ironwork, which overlook the city.
Located on the former “green line”, the Yellow House was a forward control post and sniper base during the civil war. In addition to its strategic location, the airy architecture of the Yellow House, with its transparency and varied shooting angles, was used for military purposes to control the surrounding area, known as the “Sodeco Crossroads”.
Today, this building is therefore an unusual structure due to this combination of domestic architecture and “war architecture”, created by snipers that occupied the building during the civil war. www.beitbeirut.org

Client: The City of Beirut is managing and financing the project. Project management assistance is provided by the City of Paris.

Consultant/Designer:  Youssef Haidar ArchitectE DPLG | Wissam Tawil & Associates MEP Engineers

Funding: The Municipality of Beirut.

Project area: 8000m2

Description: The Yellow House will be restored to accommodate a museum, a cultural and artistic meeting place, a facility for archiving research and studies on the city of Beirut throughout history, an urban planning office for the city of Beirut and an underground car-park. Additionally, a new building will be constructed on the free-part of the land.

The existing building of "Beit Beirut“ or “The Yellow House” is an old four story building with a roof. The contractor's scope of work is to consolidate the existing building structure. Restoration works will ensure preservation and conservation of the building. Excavation of 20 meters below existing grounds will enable to add one floor below ground to the existing building and 6 floors below ground to the new structure. Associated MEP works are included.

Beit Beirut architectural style strikes a balance between heritage and modernity. The challenge of the Yellow House restoration project is to offer the inhabitants of Beirut a living cultural facility, underscored by the recent history of the building. The project entails restoring the original house whilst preserving the traces of war to highlight the unique character of the building and its evolution through the years. In addition, a new building will be built to create a public facility. A ramp will link the two buildings and the facility will be accessible to people with reduced mobility. www.beitbeirut.org