Tina Torbey

Académie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts

School of Architecture

P50 | BEIRUT NATIONAL CONSERVATORY OF MUSIC. The city merges with musical perception.

by Tina Torbey 



The project is located in Beirut - Mathaf, at the intersection of two major vehicular and pedestrian axis. The concept is to create a musical neighborhood, on the scale and form of the residential neighborhoods of my study zone, by introducing a musical dimension to it. Theoretically, it is the reconstruction of the unique experience of Beirut, and of a conservatory of music. It is the interference of sounds, of different heights, frequencies, and importance, with each sound rationally put in its place, but the direct result gives the impression of a musical improvisation. The reception seems chaotic. Physically, some classrooms rise to the surface in the form of boxes of different proportions according to different instrumental, functional, or acoustic needs. They overlook an open-air garden created on the first floor, as a result of a sequential musical journey, starting from the exterior public space, to the interior one, to the semi-public ground floor’s open-air garden with its steps leading to it. Concerning the facades treatment, those oriented north and west are entirely glazed, given some translucency for the intimacy and privacy of the educational pole, and still offering a “show” for the passerby to see. For orientation and structural reasons the south elevation, which is the most exposed, has few openings. It also generates a curiosity to discover the “interior facades”.


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Tina Torbey. Born in Beirut-Lebanon in 1988. She got her French baccalaureate degree in mathematics in 2006 and her degree in architecture from the Académie Libanaise des Beaux Arts-ALBA in Beirut, with high honours in 2013. She later won the 1st prize in The Order of Engineers and Architects Award (2013) and the 1st prize in the Samir Mokbel Award of Excellence in Architectural Design (2013). She also participated in two architectural workshops, reuniting students from different European architecture schools. Tina was taking piano courses, in line with her architectural studies, in the Lebanese National Higher Conservatory of Music-LNHCM, which she graduated from with honours (2012). Her experience in music has taught her a lot about architectural reasoning and the true art of composition.