architect: BLANKPAGE
location: Dora, Lebanon
year: 2011
Pier 7 is an outdoor night club on the Dora seaside. It is the first investment of its kind in this highly industrial and neglected area of the greater Beirut metropolis. Its master plan was envisioned as a work of land art, with a potential of eventual expansion. To shield the intervention from its aggressive context, its facade was conceived as a reflective wall that absorbs the surrounding landscape in a signaling gesture that is inpired from the language of the industry: red neons, the passing car headlights and steel structures. In front of the wall, a raised podium serves as a reception platform and car display, hinting to the show that is taking place on the inside. Clubbers goes through the wall into a central lobby, oriented towards the horizon that gradually reveals the program. This lobby alludes in its color palette and materiality to the beautiful sunset that one witnesses in that area of the coast. It is extended by a pier to allow access to the club from the sea. To the west of the sunset lobby is the night club, conceived on different levels as an arena that overlooks the sea. This arena wraps around a central bar and a sculptural installation (the cloud pergola) that holds all the light and sound systems of the club and hosts its central stage where musical and theatrical events take place. The wall-facade, in addition to hosting within its thickness the technical and service areas of the project, hides an exclusive staircase that leads towards 7 VIP suites that are located on the highest level of the arena. Conceptualized as a modern colloseum of sorts, Pier 7 has set the trend in transforming the seaside highway into an industrial trendy clubbing area.
