Nicolas GABRIEL is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Architecture, FAAD, NDU–Louaize. He received his Doctorate degree in Urban Geography and Planning with “High Honors” at the University of Paul-Valéry (UPV) of Montpellier, France in 2011. He is one of the founders of the Architecture Department since it started at NDU, where he served in several committees and participated in all the curricular changes and improvements.

His professional experience has been forged via national and regional architectural projects and urban planning developments.

Teaching Architecture, for him, is a quest for defining the substance of such discipline. The relevant “Object of Knowledge” being hardly discernible and is also subject to questioning; How can architecture be distinguished from other disciplines? What vocation should Architects seek? What contribution can Architecture/Architects bring to knowledge and in which form? Is Architecture a mere consumer of technology or could it be part of its making? ...From the Classical Beaux-Arts approach, to the most recent paradigmatic shifts in teaching Architecture, his main concern is to seek new possibilities especially in peculiar contexts such as the Lebanese case.

Doctorate, Urban Geography and Planning, Universite Paul Valery, Montpellier III, France, 2011.

D.E.A., Urban Geography, Paul-Valery University, Montpellier III, France, 2004

D.E.S.S, Urbanism, Lebanese University-INBA, Beirut, jointly with the University of Lyon II (France) and the Languedoc Roussillon School of Architecture (France), Beirut, 2000.

D.E.S., Architecture, Lebanese University-INBA, Beirut, 1987.

Conference Proceedings

Gabriel, N. (2000) The fallout of positivistic urbanism on heritage in Lebanon: the case of Tyr. Fifth International Seminar: Forum UNESCO – University and Heritage, the Lebanese American University (LAU), and the Lebanese University.