LINA GHOTMEH - Archidea 72

PROFILE LINA GHOTMEH

Lina Ghotmeh’s archaeology of the future

Photo: David Levene

How can architecture converse with the past, but still create a new narrative for the future? The Lebanese architect Lina Ghotmeh has developed a unique design response rooted in memory, transformation and continuity. Her buildings are not meant to become unwavering monuments, but the opposite: living, breathing structures that are shaped as much by their history as by the people who inhabit them. “My aim is not permanence in the traditional sense,” she says. “It’s about resonance – that these structures can continue to evolve while holding onto their essence.”

ESTONIAN NATIONAL MUSEUM, TARTU, ESTONIA PHOTO: TAKUJI SHIMMURA, COURTESY DGT

A competition that kickstarts a career

In 2006, the Ministry of Culture of Estonia faced the task of selecting the winner of an anonymous, international architecture competition for a new national museum. One proposal impressed the jury with its sheer conceptual confidence. Rather than placing the building on a designated location outlined in the brief, the winning entry envisioned the museum as an extension of a former Soviet airstrip elsewhere on the terrain. The design was shaped like a materialized lift-off: a large, sweeping wedge sloping upward towards the sky – and the country’s bright future ahead.

The location change was bold considering that the airstrip, to many Estonians, evoked the fresh scars of the country’s Soviet repression that ended in 1991. But the jury understood the design’s intentions and mentioned in their report: “This history cannot and must not be banished from the nation’s memory by denying the traces still present; rather, they should be given a new meaning that inspires hope.” When the winner was revealed, Ministry officials must have been stunned to find out who was behind this confident and well-researched design.

An alliance of three young architects had outshone 108 international established competitors. Dan Dorell, Tsuyoshi Tane and Lina Ghotmeh were all under 30 and still working as employees at large architecture firms. Out of sheer excitement, 25-year-old Lina Ghotmeh promptly dropped and broke her phone in front of the Pompidou Centre upon receiving the winning phone call. In the end, the leap of faith of both client and architects paid off: the building was completed in 2016 and is now one of the most visited museums in Estonia.

Architecture that emerges from context and memory

For Lina Ghotmeh, the breakthrough in Estonia marked the start of a swift rise to architectural recognition. Looking back, what gave her the confidence to enter the competition so early in her career? “We had a strong sense of purpose,” she says. “We also had a desire to respond meaningfully to the site’s complex history. In a way, we didn’t challenge the brief for the sake of challenging it – we simply followed the story of the place. That’s always been essential in my practice: architecture must emerge from context, from memory, and from the traces of what came before.”

This context-driven approach has resulted in a fruitful career so far. Today, Lina runs her own Paris-based architecture firm, Lina Ghotmeh – Architecture. Together with her team, she works on projects such as Qatar’s Permanent Pavilion for the Biennale’s Giardini in Venice, the British Museum’s Wester Range renovation in London, and the modernisation of the Museum am Rothenbaum (MARKK) in Hamburg – an impactful range of commissions for a relatively young architect.

ESTONIAN NATIONAL MUSEUM, TARTU, ESTONIA PHOTO: TAKUJI SHIMMURA, COURTESY DGT

ESTONIAN NATIONAL MUSEUM, TARTU, ESTONIA PHOTO: TONUTUNNEL

ESTONIAN NATIONAL MUSEUM, TARTU, ESTONIA PHOTO: TAKUJI SHIMMURA

Archaeology of the future

Lina Ghotmeh was born in 1980 in Beirut, Lebanon. A tumultuous period, with the city suffering through a devastating civil war. But to Lina, Beirut encapsulated something more than conflict: the city was – and still is – an extraordinary cosmopolitan hub in which many civilisations, religions and cultures meet in an ebb and flow of friction and harmony. “Growing up in Beirut during a time of conflict shaped my architectural sensibility profoundly”, she reflects back. “I was raised in a tower, overlooking a city in constant transformation, always ‘living at the edge’. I was confronted with instability, but I was also immersed in a rich plurality of cultures and histories. This environment awakened in me a deep awareness of the power of space: how it impacts people’s lives, but also a desire to transform it and to allow beauty to bring people together in my surroundings.”

This understanding initially inspired her to pursue a career in archaeology. But she eventually decided against it, in favour of studying architecture at the American University of Beirut. Here, her interest in archaeology took on a new shape. Throughout her studies, she developed an architectural vision which she calls the ‘Archeology of the Future’, a design approach in which every new gesture aims to reinvent the traces of the past. “The idea of Archaeology of the Future is deeply tied to both the tactile and the intangible”, she says. “In my work, I always begin by listening – to the environment, the memory of a place, its soil, its past gestures – and this guides the material choices and spatial design.” It informs an in-depth historical, and materially sensitive approach to its context and designs are developed through thorough historical research.

Stone Garden Housing

One of the projects that embodies this approach is Stone Garden Housing, a 13-storey-high housing tower and art gallery near Beirut’s old port that was completed in 2020. The site once housed a concrete company, as well as the office of Lebanese architect Pierre El Khoury – the father of the new building’s client. The new building relates to multiple narratives: not only Beirut’s urban context, but also the family’s personal connection to the site.

Rather than a man-made structure, the building’s façade feels as if a mythical giant chiseled a monumental dwelling out of a mountain. Its bold angles and jagged roofscape shift in appearance when seen from different vantage points. Windows and balconies appear as cave-like hollows; rectangular, carved out spaces that alternate in size and rhythm. Their interpretation is left open: what one person might see as playful loggias with planters; someone else might experience as snipers’ hideaways or the echoes of bullet holes.

Architecture must emerge from context

STONE GARDEN, BEIRUT, LEBANON PHOTO: IWAN BAAN

Highlighting human craftsmanship

Stone Garden Housing also highlights the architect’s attention to human craftsmanship and artistry, as if she is leaving fingerprints on a building for next generations to investigate. In Stone Garden Housing, the façade surface is texturised with horizontal grooves that were created by craftsmen gliding custom-designed metal combs over the drying concrete. She explains how the presence of craftsmanship adds a distinct personal touch to the building’s past. “These tactile traces make visible what is often intangible – history, emotion, and collective memory. It creates a bridge between what is made and what is remembered, between materiality and spirit.”

The result is striking. The surface resembles a recently harrowed field, adding to the sense that this building has been in close contact with the earth for centuries, and that it will remain there solidly in the years to come. That resilient energy was tested sooner than expected. The building suffered from the city’s catastrophic harbour explosion that happened just after completion. Although the structure remained intact, the windows were shattered and needed replacement. It underscores the building’s indivisible connection to the city’s ever-changing history.

Hermès Workshops

The materially expressive approach is also apparent in the Hermès Workshops in Normandy, France, that were completed in 2023. Craftsmanship was both the start and end point for the project, reflecting the values of Hermès and the function of the building as a leather atelier. The structure is organised around an orthogonal grid in which indoor and outdoor spaces are alternated to provide workers with pleasant workspaces and moments of open air relaxation. But the design also had a broader ambition: it sought to make a contribution to the region’s industrial legacy, and was designed to be the country’s first low carbon, energy positive building.

The arched, maroon-coloured brick façade was informed by the architecture studio’s research into the region. It appeared that the local brick-making industry, once thriving, had been reduced to a limited production output and marginal use in construction. The Hermès workshops proved an opportunity to reverse the trend: clay from the site was used to create the bricks and a local company trained artisans on ancient brick-laying techniques, reinvigorating the local industry. The design also showcases the material’s versatility. The brick is applied in a light, pavilion-like manner with arches that evoke the bouncy gallop of a horse – a subtle nod to Hermès’ origins as a saddle maker.

PRECISE ACTS – HERMÈS WORKSHOPS, NORMANDY, FRANCE PHOTO: IWAN BAAN

Cultural pavilions and museums

These examples show how Lina Ghotmeh’s buildings allow people to discover different layers of information within a single design. This approach, rich in storytelling and symbolism, has proven to be a great match for cultural institutions. In 2023, she received the prestigious commission to design the Serpentine Summer Pavilion in London. The design titled ‘À table’ is a circular, covered space with panelled ceilings and walls. Its warm colours and open setup are an invitation for people to sit together at the table to share a meal and enter into dialogue. Following this commission, Lina has taken on other pavilions worldwide: Qatar’s Permanent Pavilion at the Biennale’s Giardini in Venice and the Bahrain Pavilion for the Osaka Expo 2025.

The British Museum’s Western Range

And in 2025, almost 20 years after her breakthrough in Estonia, Lina Ghotmeh has taken on a museum once again with one of her most prestigious commissions yet: the design of The British Museum’s Western Range. Again, she won a high-profile competition that included established giants such as OMA and David Chipperfield Architects. And in another mirror to her practice’s past, the assignment feels uniquely suited to her. The British Museum holds the world’s largest – but often contested – collection of global antiquities.

This project presents her with a challenge. How to engage with a context that is as complex as it is charged? Lina explains that she sees each project as a vessel for a positive dialogue with the environment, the history of the site, with its cultural memory, and with the client and stakeholders. “Engaging with historical structures and urban fabric has taught me to listen deeply to the stories already embedded in place”, she comments. “Through a collaborative process, architecture becomes a vessel for stories that resonate emotionally and intellectually, making the space meaningful through its physical presence and beyond.”

The assignment to design the British Museum’s Western Range is, in many ways, a fitting assignment for an archaeologist in disguise who designs buildings that speak across centuries, acknowledging history’s triumphs and traumas. “My childhood experience of the city as a layered, fragile, and resilient place informs how I listen to memory and materiality in my work. The coexistence of trauma and hope in Beirut taught me that architecture must hold tension, acknowledging pain while opening toward renewal. This personal history underpins my approach to projects in difficult contexts, where the past is never erased but rather woven into a narrative of future possibilities.”

Buildings as living organisms

As an architect, Lina sees buildings not as static objects but as living bodies and organisms that breathe, adapt, and carry life. This way, she aims to create buildings that will be lived in with intimacy and meaning. “I hope that my buildings will become part of people’s rituals – quiet or collective”, she reflects. “I imagine my buildings being reinterpreted by others, used in ways I never predicted. That’s beautiful to me. I don’t want architecture to be a finished or ‘closed’ work; I want it to invite reinterpretation, to foster community, to remain generous. I hope my work will eventually feel as if it had always been there, shaped as much by those who inhabit it as by the land it rises from.”

Through a collaborative process, architecture becomes a vessel for stories

SERPENTINE PAVILION, LONDON, UK PHOTO: IWAN BAAN

QATAR’S PERMANENT PAVILION, VENICE, ITALY IMAGE: LINA GHOTMEH - ARCHITECTURE

BAHRAIN PAVILION, OSAKA EXPO 2025, OSAKA, JAPAN PHOTO: IWAN BAAN

BRITISH MUSEUM, LONDON, UK IMAGE: LINA GHOTMEH - ARCHITECTURE