​​The city—every city—is generally built around sources of water. The site contains such sources, and through the initial act of excavating the ground, we uncover the fundamental element that will nourish the project. A Well (Al-Bir, the etymological origin of the name “Beirut”) will thus become the anchor, grounding the Museum's foundation within this territory.

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With water, we begin by creating a Garden, in contrast to the trend of removing green spaces with every new construction in Beirut. This Garden, composed of a sequence of varied landscapes, unfolds over several levels, defining a territory of Art. The Territory of Art will then be marked by a powerful urban and territorial gesture that counters the horizontality of the well and the garden: a Campanile, a visible and vertical sign. It is the defining act of the site: both Art and Architecture, serving as a fulcrum and a call to the “outside,” becoming a cardinal point, a topological center of culture and national identity, catalyzing diverse convergences.

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The Campanile gives architecture to Art, offering artists exceptional, singular spaces of expression. Like Leibniz’s monad or Borges’ Aleph, it is a point in the world that virtually contains all worlds. Aleph (א)—the first letter of the Arabic and Phoenician alphabets—becomes here, in architectural terms, a window onto the city, gathering and diffusing the dispersed energies of culture and territory.