Annabel Karim Kassar is a Franco-Lebanese architect of French origin, born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France, on July 7, 1952. She graduated as a DPLG architect from the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. In 1994, she established her professional practice in Paris and, that same year, founded AKK Architects in Lebanon. Today, the studio has offices in Milan, Beirut and Dubai, and works internationally on commercial, industrial, hospitality and residential projects, also incorporating elements from its own furniture and lighting collections.
She has gained wide recognition for helping to revive Beirut, one of the leading creative capitals of the Middle East, after winning a competition in the mid-1990s for the reconstruction of the city’s souks. She is also responsible for some of Beirut’s most popular venues, including Momo at the Souks, created with Mourad Mazouz, as well as Strange Fruit and Balima. Her projects also include the Almaz restaurants in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, the Ella Funt restaurant-bistro in New York, the installation The Lebanese House: saving a home in London, and recent projects in Milan, London, Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Ajman.
In recent years, she has developed several projects in Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates, including the Al Zorah Pavilion, winner of a 2014 German Design Council Award, and a golf club in Ajman. Alongside her architectural practice, she has pursued a significant body of work in lighting design through CAI LIGHT, founded with lighting designer Christophe Hascoet and architect Isabelle Rolland.
Annabel Karim Kassar’s work in furniture and lighting design has evolved through collaborations and projects that combine craftsmanship, functionality and formal experimentation. In 1998, she collaborated with Christophe Hascoet and Isabelle Rolland on a lighting concept inspired by the traditional Lebanese house, a partnership that led to the creation of CAI LIGHT in 2002. Later, in 2020, she began a collaboration with the Italian furniture company Moroso, which culminated in the launch of the Salon Nanà collection in Milan in 2021.
