Art Of Curation
Touches of red and a well-edited selection of art and design make this modern home in Beirut unique
The Lebanese interior designer Claude Missir and his wife Randa used to live in a duplex close to the presidential palace to the south of Beirut. It had numerous advantages. It was close to the schools of their three children, as well as to his parents. There was also a garden. “It’s a very quiet, sought-after area,” notes Claude. It was, however, far from his office in the city centre and Claude spent far too much time in traffic jams. “There were periods when he wouldn’t see the kids at all. By the time he got back in the evening, they were in bed,” recalls Randa. So, when the couple heard about the development of a new luxury high-rise in the Achrafieh district in the east of Beirut, they jumped at the chance of living in a more conveniently located home. The building is just a stone’s throw from the Sursock Museum, which is housed in a stately mansion dating from 1912, and just a few minutes’ walk from the ABC shopping mall. It also has unusually high ceilings that stretch to four metres and sweeping views of the sea. “When people come for the first time, they’re always surprised to see the Mediterranean Sea because we’re only on the fourth floor,” says Randa. Native to the city, Claude aspired to be an interior designer since childhood. His father had a construction firm and from around the age of seven, Claude would regularly accompany him to building sites. He went on to study at the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts and founded his own practice soon after graduation. Today, he has close to 30 employees and an international portfolio. His projects include the boutique O Monot Hotel and many restaurants in Beirut, a 63-metre boat, apartments in Paris, a 6,000-sqm villa in Jordan and a private resort in Jeddah.
His style is quite resolutely pared-down. He lists among his aesthetic inspirations masters of minimalism such as Tadao Ando and John Pawson, and always strives for great purity in his interiors. “I like simplicity and to limit the use of materials. It creates spaces that are freer and more restful,” he asserts. His own 6,675-sqft apartment is a perfect case in point. All the electric sockets are carefully hidden, as are the air-conditioning vents. There are also no visible radiators. Instead, Claude opted for under-floor heating. Throughout, the walls were simply painted white (“I prefer to hang art on them rather than have any form of decoration,” he says) and the same parquet runs throughout the whole apartment. The latter turned out to be a bit of a logistical nightmare. Each plank measures 15 metres in length, which meant they were too large to fit into a container. Instead, they had to be shipped from Denmark in a special boat, then craned into the apartment through the windows. Once inside, they wouldn’t bend around some of the corners. So, Claude had to demolish sections of walls in order to get them into the hallways and bedrooms. Together, he and Randa had been putting together an impressive collection of art and furniture for around eight years. Previously, however, they had lived with little of it. It simply sat in storage. While designing the apartment, Claude had no preconceived ideas of where any of it would go. When the
construction work was finished, he brought the 100-or-so pieces to the flat and started to place them in the manner of a jigsaw puzzle. “The first day was catastrophic,” he remembers. “Certain things just wouldn’t go. I said, ‘Let’s not panic! We don’t necessarily have to integrate every single piece we like’.” Instead, they edited them down and sent about half back into storage. Among those that did make the cut are sculptures by Antony Gormley, Roni Horn and Tony Cragg, and paintings by the likes of Rudolf Stingel, Rob Pruitt, Dan Colen and Günther Förg. Both Claude and Randa concur about their favourite work of art— the LED lightbox sculpture by Doug Aitken, which spells out the word “FREE”. Claude claims it perfectly fits in with his philosophy of life. “I’ve never had any associates, I’ve never been salaried. I’ve always been independent,” he declares. The carefully curated furnishings, meanwhile, are a happy mix. Among them are classic vintage pieces, such as the sculptural black De Sede sofa, a pair of Ib Kofod-larsen armchairs in the family room and several designs by Poul Kjaerholm, whom Claude is a big fan of. “He’s really fascinating. There’s only what’s necessary in his creations and the proportions are simply fantastic,” he says. Contemporary items include the dining table by Terence Woodgate and John Barnard, and limited-edition stools by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec. The Douglas fir table in the sitting room, custom-designed by Claude himself, is very much the focal point of the apartment. It serves as a bar when friends come for drinks. The couple’s daughter Sacha likes to listen to music there and it’s where all three children regularly do their homework. It was Randa who insisted on integrating a few splashes of bright red, which come by way of a Nanna Ditzel “Oda” armchair and ottoman, and a drop-shaped fibreglass sculpture by Sterling Ruby. Now that the apartment is complete, she has but one regret—that they couldn’t find a place for one of their most treasured possessions, a vintage sofa designed by Brazilian modernist Sergio Rodrigues. She says, “We tried everywhere— in the bedroom, in the sitting room, even in the lift lobby—but it just wouldn’t fit. So now, we want to redecorate our chalet in the mountains to find a spot for it there.”