Film: in this film, French architect Annabel Karim Kassar explains how her Camera Chiara set up recreated the atmosphere of a Lebanese residence in a Milanese courtyard.
Kassar’s Camera Chiara set up, which opened in April in the course of Milan Design Week, consisted of two telescopic pavilions made from steel and burnt wood located within 1 of the University of Milan’s eighteenth-century courtyards.
One particular of the structures contained a cinema showing films about Lebanon, even though the second housed the recreation of a liwan — the central space in a conventional Lebanese home.
“I’ve lived on and off in Lebanon for 20 years,” explains Kassar, whose architecture practice has offices in London and Dubai as properly as Beirut. “I attempted to carry to Milan my knowledge of Lebanon. I came here to share an emotion.”
The pavilion housing the liwan featured tiles and textiles by Lebanese artisans, as well as vintage furniture from Europe and a decorative toilet that Kassar made for her own house.
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An outdated Television played classic movies, even though a gramophone emitted street sounds, which Kassar recorded in Beirut.
“In Lebanon the homes are really open, the doors are usually open,” Kassar explains. “This mix of arabic music, birds, the sounds of the street and the Television going on with some extraordinary previous movie is a combine of daily life that I cannot discover so effortlessly in Europe.”
The stepped floor of the cinema pavilion, which showed films produced by Kassar documenting a variety of conventional Lebanese crafts, was lined with mattresses manufactured in Tripoli, Lebanon.
“The cinema brings a glimpse of the culture of Lebanese men and women,” Kassar says. “These mattresses had been created by a man outside [on the street]. It really is nice to bring [his craftwork] here.”
Kassar says she is extremely pleased with how well-known the cinema has proved with guests.
“I’m quite happy that men and women are coming and staying,” she says. “At night the area is complete and individuals are staying until midnight. For me that is the very best final result.”
This movie was developed by Dezeen for Annabel Karim Kassar Architects.
It was filmed at Milan University, in which Kassar’s Camera Chiara installation was on demonstrate from 13 April to 24 May. Added footage utilised in the film and the pictures in this story are by Annabel Karim Kassar Architects, unless otherwise stated.
Annabel Karim Kassar. Copyright: Dezeen Dezeen
