Born in 1979 in Beirut, Lebanon, Salim Al Kadi is an architect
and artist who studied at the American University of Beirut
from 1997-2004 before continuing his higher education at
Columbia University in New York from 2005-2006. After
studying and working in New York he returned to Beirut in
2009 where he designed and built a variety of
programmatically diverse projects at multiple scales,
locally and internationally. In parallel he also developed a
wide teaching experience spanning over 10 years at the
American University of Beirut.
In conjunction with architecture as building, he also
self-initiated none-building interventions. In 2014 Al Kadi
co-founded The Sigil Collective and co-produced
‘Monuments of the Everyday’ which was exhibited at the
XXII Triennale di Milan (2019), Sixth Oslo Architecture
Triennale (2016), Sixth Marrakesh Biennale (2016),
13th Sharjah Biennale (2016), and Fourteenth International
Architecture Exhibition in Venice (2014).
Independently, in 2016 he produced the K29 Keffiyeh, a
traditional Arab head scarf that he embroidered onto Kevlar,
material designed to resist flying projectiles, which was
exhibited in 2017 at the Museum of Modern Art, New York
City. In January 2020, he published Beirut 001, the first
readily available open-source digital 3D model of Beirut to
collectively re-imagine the city. After the August 4th Beirut
port explosion, the model became a source for first
responders, local and international professionals.
Currently, Al Kadi has recently relocated to New York City.