The Duty-Free Market at the International Airport — A Purely Lebanese Achievement!

About a month ago the duty-free market at the international airport in Beirut was opened in the presence of the President of the Republic, the great men of state, and a gathering of directors of airline companies and banks, merchants, and others. The event was reckoned at the time to be of great importance. And there are those who affirm that it is the largest duty-free market in the international airports of the world...

It is Lebanon's good fortune that its government should grant it its favor and agree to the opening of a duty-free market at its grand international airport. From the day the airport of Khalde came into being, Lebanon grew great in the eyes of the world; and so this market has come, with all its taste and refined design, in harmony with the splendor of the airport itself.

What adds to the airport's splendor and grandeur is the spacious "autostrade" that extends in a wide, straight line, joining the airport to the Lebanese capital... so that the stranger coming to Beirut from the airport is captivated by the charm of nature — amid the perpetual green of the pines and the climbing mountains, over whose shoulders and summits the sweet red-roofed villages lie spread...

And since a large portion of the travelers passing through Beirut "in transit" have no time to go down into the city and buy the things they wish to buy, the idea arose of creating a duty-free market on the grounds of the airport itself, supplied with all the goods a traveler might be tempted to buy.

The duty-free market comprises thirty shops for display and sale, where travelers and tourists can buy everything they desire. How was this accomplished?

The problem was to create a "modern market," up to date in every sense of the word, with each display window given a character of its own, suited to the goods to be shown in it: the windows displaying shoes differ from the windows of perfumes, and likewise the windows of fabrics, and so on — and all these windows together had to form a whole of complete harmony.

This delicate task was entrusted to the "decorating engineer," Mr. Camille Munsif — a young man who had already given standing proof of his refined taste and his high artistic qualifications.

He began his life as a student of sculpture and painting, but observed in France that artists are forever destitute, without the wherewithal to keep body and soul together, so he chose to profit from his talents by way of interior decoration... and returned home licensed in this art. From that day he has climbed the ladder rung by rung... demonstrating an extraordinary capacity for creating what is new and original, and a strange vitality that knows no fatigue: he is forever moving between this office and that hotel, and yonder palace, and this public square... and never once has he disappointed those who value his art.

Camille Munsif is, without doubt, a source of pride for Lebanon in an art that until the recent past remained the preserve of the Franks — French, English, and others. It was therefore a gracious gesture on the part of His Excellency the President of the Republic when he expressed his utmost astonishment and admiration at the refined taste displayed in the market, and asked after the decorating engineer who had made the design and seen to its execution... He was told: he is one of ours, from Lebanon... It was a gracious gesture of His Excellency that he at once conferred on Mr. Munsif the Order of the Cedar in the rank of Knight, in appreciation of a great work that consumed much of his effort, his power of invention, the breadth of his imagination, and his vitality.

One can imagine how beautiful and magnificent the display windows will appear when they are fully fitted out and filled with the goods for which they were designed!

And now let us give a living picture of this market!

With two materials — glass and wood — Camille Munsif was able to create a varied assemblage of lines, shapes, and colors: broad panels of glass; doors of unbreakable "Securit" glass — spreading transparency and light through the air...

One notices the abundant use of "Formica," that famous plastic material with its cheerful colors, for the finishing of tables and desks...

The visitor passes along a row of shops divided by a wide passage. This is the pavilion of silks, that one for jewelry, and that one for shoes of every kind; in this pavilion the fabrics, and over there silverware, woolens, garments, furs, Oriental sundries, carpets, the handiwork of "Zouk," and perfumes, etc....

And despite the variety of the shops in their forms and the variety of the goods displayed in them, there is a unity of style, to which Camille Munsif held fast, that lends the place an air of assurance and cheerfulness at a high level without equal in the most advanced countries of the world.

Worth mentioning is that this great work was accomplished at the hands of Lebanese and in the workshops of Lebanon.

We congratulate the Lebanese government on adopting this economic project of surpassing importance, which strengthens the publicity for Lebanon among all the peoples of the world; and we congratulate Mr. Camille Munsif on the dazzling success he has achieved, for which he deserved the high decoration.