By Design: Cherine Magrabi

In 2012, Cherine Magrabi launched House of Today in Beirut, a unique hub to support and advise Lebanese designers, and to sell their work. A decade on, she is pretty pleased with the results. “When you say Lebanese design now, it means something,” she says. “There is a significant scene. We’ve tapped into local crafts and made them contemporary; we’ve created momentum.” It’s all the more remarkable when you consider Beirut’s recent background of chaos, including the horrors of the 2020 Beirut explosion (which devastated the Gemmayze district where many designers are based), the global pandemic and a totally failed economy.

Now designers including Nicolas Moussallem and David Raffoul, Stephanie Sayer and Rami Dalle operate on the international stage (Dalle has designed windows for Hermès), while others have benefited from the House of Today fund, which enables young Lebanese people to study at local institutions or farther afield. Magrabi’s initiative has sent students to the Rhode Island School of Design, for example, and the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp.

Magrabi, born in Jeddah to Saudi-Egyptian and Lebanese parents, started out as both an interior designer – she studied in London at the Chelsea School of Art – and a collector. With her husband, Ahmed Tayeb, she has artworks by artists including Alex Katz, Keith Haring, Andy Warhol and Richard Prince, as well as an impressive holding of both contemporary and vintage design. “I started collecting [George] Nakashima early on,” she says of the Japanese/American master of wooden furniture, famous for his raw-edged work. “His prices have gone so high I wonder if I would buy it now.”

She has also worked closely with Londonbased Italian Martino Gamper. “I really do have a lot of his work,” she says. “He’s fantastic, and he’s evolved so beautifully as a designer while staying true to his aesthetic.” Special commissions include a laminate and metal table that splits into four parts, and an exquisite children’s desk and bookshelf. “The children are now 24, 21 and 20, but that piece will be with me forever,” says Magrabi.

Bearing in mind Beirut’s recent, and indeed current, turmoil, the House of Today’s 10th celebrations will be suitably thoughtful, with workshops and lectures. But a permanent installation involving many of the designers Magrabi has mentored will be installed in the Public Library in Beirut. “It’s one of the city’s most important cultural buildings,” says Magrabi. “I think, or at least I hope, we’ve earned our place there.”