WORKac in collaboration with Musea Brugge and Cultuurcentrum Brugge has created an exhibition entitled Water Works. Set to run initially from March 7th to June 7th, 2020 at the historic Poortersloge in Bruges, Belgium, the exhibition has been temporarily closed to the public due to the ongoing COVID-19 epidemic. However, the New York-based architectural practice has produced a brief video highlighting its six themed rooms and the eighteen projects on display.
What is architecture if it does not understand its context? Architecture is shaped and curated by the area it lives in, showcasing the culture it embodies. The more of this identity it embodies, the more meaningful (and sometimes prominent) it becomes.
December of 2018 was a month of prosperity for Lebanese architecture: Hashim Sarkis was announced curator of the 2020 Venice Biennale and Lebanese-born Amale Andraos and partner Dan Wood of WORKac were selected to build the Beirut Museum of Art. The museum, a dynamic assembly of contoured geometries (not entirely unlike their work at Miami's Museum Garage) located in the heart of Beirut City, will house permanent and temporary exhibitions across 12,000 square meters. WORKac's winning scheme was chosen for its ability to “reveal the cultural possibilities of integrating art, architecture, and landscape within a dense urban setting and as a means to re-imagine how we can live, learn and share together.”
Architect Amale Andraos and her firm WORKac have been selected to design BeMA, the new Beirut Museum of Art in Lebanon. Centrally located in the heart of Beirut, the project will be positioned on a site that once marked the dividing line in the Lebanese civil war. The museum’s permanent collection will include modern and contemporary artworks from Lebanon, the Lebanese diaspora and the wider region. The new project will feature 70 balconies arrayed as a vertical promenade that blends indoor and outdoor spaces to create an open museum for the city.
