Makram El Kadi, Principal / Founder L.E.FT

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Makram el Kadi received his Bachelor’s degree in Architecture from the American University of Beirut in 1997 and his Masters degree in architecture from Parsons School of Design in 1999.

After working at the offices of Fumihiko Maki in Japan, he joined Steven Holl Architects where he was project designer on numerous international projects for 5 years, among others the World Trade Center proposal with Richard Meier, Peter Eisenman and Charles Gwathmey, the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and the Beirut Marina project. El Kadi taught architecture with Steven Holl at the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation. He co-taught studio and seminar at Cornell University, and taught at Yale University where he served as the Louis Kahn Visiting Assistant Professor. Currently he is co-teaching at Columbia University GSAPP.

In February, I had an opportunity to visit the project at Moukhtara and spend an afternoon with Makram. I was impressed by his intellect, the breadth of his thinking and particularly the project in Moukhtara Lebanon. The premise and nuanced layering of messages in the project align with themes we are interested in within the area of experience design. The aesthetic mixes centuries old craft traditions with a contemporary sense of form and sly integration of digital messages. Makram is Druze, an important sect in defining the culture in Syria and Lebanon over the past thousand years. The Druze faith is considered a sect of Islam based on the teachings of Hamza ibn-‘Ali, al-Hakim, Plato, Aristotle, Socrates and Akhenaten. Druze thinking highlights the role of the mind and truthfulness that is evident in the Moukhtara project.

The Druze faith is a monotheistic and Abrahamic religion based on the teachings of Hamza ibn-‘Ali, al-Hakim, Plato, Aristotle, Socrates and Akhenaten. Druze highlight the role of the mind and truthfulness.