Direction the Sursock Museum in Beirut. This mansion erected at the beginning of the 20th century in the prestigious district of Achrafieh is the modern art museum of Beirut, in Lebanon.

The Sursock Museum opened its doors in 1961, in accordance with the desire of its owner Nicholas Sursock, a wealthy art collector, to see his home become a place of exhibition after his death. He had erected it in 1912.

Outside, an arch under two large monumental staircases opens onto a mezzanine. From the outside, it is a model of Lebanese architecture mixing Venetian and Ottoman styles.

To preserve the original architecture of the building built in 1912, the architects dug a 20-metre basement, which houses the bookstore, the auditorium, exhibition spaces and conservation and restoration rooms.

Its corridors with pure lines iridescent by restored stained glass windows lead to lounges with wood worked in the purely Arabic style.

The Sursock Museum hosts exhibitions, each more incredible than the next. At the time these lines were written, around twenty works from the collection of the Picasso Museum in Paris around the theme of the family were exhibited there (between September 26, 2019 and January 6, 2020). Since then, other exhibitions have taken part in the museum, to be found directly on the official website.

Entrance is on a donation basis: you can leave the amount you want in the small donation box.

For my part, I visited the Sursock Museum in 2018, here are some photos brought back from my visit.

For more information, go directly to the official website of the Sursock Museum.