Brutalist Asia Anthology Examines Brutalism Beyond the West, Including Lebanon's Interdesign Building

Key facts

• Blue Crow Media published Brutalist Asia, a book reframing Brutalism's history from an Asian perspective.
• The publication covers 28 countries and features 140 buildings with over 150 photographs.
• It includes eight original essays by Bob Pang, John Barr, Bhawna Dandona, Christele Harrouk, Kyung Taek Lee, Caryn Paredes-Santillan, Pinai Sirikiatikul, Soroush Mohajery, and Amirhosein Rad.
• Architects featured include Kenzo Tange, Paul Rudolph, Balkrishna V. Doshi, Raj Rewal, Charles Correa, Kim Swoo Geun, Leandro V. Locsin, and Le Corbusier.
• Christele Harrouk's chapter focuses on Brutalism in Lebanon, where architects like Joseph Philippe Karam, Khalil Khoury, Georges Khoury, Antoine Romanos, and Grégoire Serof adopted exposed concrete.
• Khalil Khoury conceived the Interdesign Building in 1973; construction began in 1974 and halted in April 1975 due to the Lebanese Civil War.
• Khoury completed the building by the late 1990s, but it was later seized by banks, briefly repurposed, and abandoned for decades.
• The book was published on September 17, 2026, and is authored in part by ArchDaily Editor-in-Chief Christele Harrouk.