Black Box Aizone

Black Box Aizone in Beirut, Lebanon by Bernard Khoury

For "a hip new restaurant inspired by Aïshti’s trendy clothing chain Aïzone" situated next to a department store on the northbound highway of Greater Beirut, architect Bernard Khoury made up for the building's unfortunate 20m (65') setback by creating an armature for imagery that attracts attention more than its neighbor's billboards and signage-drenched exteriors.

The Black Box Aizone, excluding its armature, is just that, a metal-clad black box emblazoned with super-graphics much like its neighbors. The entry to the black box is signaled by openings lined with bright red padded walls and sills, an opportunity to engage the architecture directly as a social container. Looking at other built projects in Beirut by Khoury, the architect appears to spin out novel designs that cater to the young and trendy nightlife set.

Outside of the black box container, its namesake, this project's signature element is its armature that reaches towards the property line and the cars beyond. It is composed of three elements: the extension connected to the black box that features an opening that can be filled with live dancers, models, and the like on weekends; a support housing an ATM; and a projection screen oriented towards the highway. Khoury indicates that the "assemblage...recognizes and amplifies contemporary society’s reliance on the trendiest fashions, latest entertainment venues and the facility of money distributors."
 

Regardless of the architect's intentions (to attract attention from the setback forward, to comment on contemporary society) its execution is definitely odd. The black box is slick and the red is an effective offset to the darkness, but the armature leaves something to be desired architecturally. The drawings especially convey it as a blowhorn or a spray bottle enlarged to a super scale, much like the text lining the black box. But maybe that's the point: to find a suitable metaphor for the dissemination of information and image.