Jean-Marc Bonfils, a noted French-Lebanese architect who helped lead the reconstruction of Beirut's war-torn downtown after the country's civil war, died August 4th, 2020 following the massive ammonium nitrate-fueled explosion that rocked the city and caused widespread damage. 

Bonfils was among at least 158 casualties resulting from the blast, which has displaced over 300,000 people and prompted the country's prime minister to resign. 

Bonfils, whose father was also a prominent architect, was born in 1963 and earned degrees from the Paris-Villemin School of Architecture, the École du Louvre, and the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London. His early career took root with some of the most daring French architects of the 1980s and 1990s, including Christian de Portzamparc, Alain Sarfati, Architecture Studio, ARTE-Jean Marie Charpentier, and Maurice Bonfils architectes.

In 1995, Bonfils and his father selected to lead the reconstruction of downtown Beirut, a contentious restoration process that ultimately became a lifetime project for the architect. In 2005, after the elder Bonfils retired, Jean-Marc launched an independent practice, Jean-Marc Bonfils Architects, which produced many contemporary and visionary designs for a variety of cultural, residential, and mixed-use projects in the region. Bonfils lived in one of those buildings, the East Village tower, which is designed with a vertical garden running up its sheer, angular facades.