St Elie Church

St Elie Church

St Elie church

Maroun Lahoud Architecte

FIRM
Maroun Lahoud Architecte

BUDGET
$1M - 5M

STATUS
Built

SIZE
3000 sqft - 5000 sqft

YEAR
2016

LOCATION
Brih, Lebanon

TYPE
Cultural › Religious

St Elie Church

The project arose with the will to gather by celebrating the elements of nature.

St Elie Church
St Elie Church

It revolves around two squares and entails St. Elie Church and a semi-sunken base.

Radiant with its white bush hammered stone cladding, the church solemnly sets in the landscape.

St Elie Church
St Elie Church

Its aspect embodies the characteristics of the Maronite Church: pure massing and flat roof.

The interior is crafted with indirect lighting schemes:

zenithal lighting above the altar, sacristy and confessional, and parietal along the lateral circulations; the white walls seem to diffuse natural light, the marble floor reflecting it in turn.

St Elie Church
St Elie Church

The base, deriving its language from the region’s cultivated terraces, remodels the topography of the hillside to house the multipurpose hall and its annexes.

Its dry-stone walling, extracted from the site and procured from the village’s demolished houses during the war, anchors the project in the ground by mimicry.

Due to its location and the contrast of its materials, the project tends to create a new focal point in the Shouf’s valley of Gold.

St Elie Church
St Elie Church


St Elie Church
St Elie Church
St Elie Church
St Elie Church


St Elie Church
St Elie Church
St Elie Church
St Elie Church