Beirut

Head to the Sursock Museum in Beirut. This mansion built at the beginning of the 20th century in the prestigious Achrafieh district is the museum of modern art in Beirut, Lebanon. The Sursock Museum opened its doors in 1961, in accordance with the wishes of its owner Nicholas Sursock, a wealthy art collector, to see his home become an exhibition space after his death. He built 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 had a 20 meter basement dug, 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 woodwork crafted in a purely Arabic style. The Sursock Museum hosts exhibitions, each more incredible than the last. At the time these lines were written, around twenty works from the collection of the Picasso Museum in Paris around the theme of family were exhibited there (between September 26, 2019 and January 6