Archinect - News

New Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance building is completed behind a playful stone facade

2023-06-01T11:43:00-04:00

Construction has been completed on the new Ari Kushner Building at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance. Designed by Tel Aviv-based HQ Architects and New York's HWKN Architecture, the scheme is housed in what the team calls an “elegant, playful, stone facade” to bring a “sense of unity and a contemporary, welcoming identity” to the academy’s campus.

Image credit: Dor Kedmi

The 27,000-square-foot cultural building houses new choreography, jazz studios, vocal and opera studios as well as a 115-seat music recital hall, equipping the campus with a central performance venue that it previously lacked. Externally, the development is defined by a “curiosity-generating” facade that extends in front of both the existing building and the new addition, constructed of unfinished Jerusalem stone blocks turned 45 degrees on their side.

Image credit: Dor Kedmi

“It balances the geometric order, natural materiality, and intentional imperfection all in a...

Planned cable-car network over Jerusalem divides the public

2019-09-16T19:51:00-04:00

Israeli authorities have approved a plan to build a cable car to the Western Wall, one of the holiest sites in the Jewish world, by 2021. It’s the first phase of what proponents envision as a fleet of cable cars crisscrossing the locus of sacred sites known as the Holy Basin.

NYT architecture critic Michael Kimmelman explains the controversial plan for a cable-car network, envisioned to connect significant Jewish religious sites in Jerusalem while bypassing Palestinian neighborhoods, and how the concept contributes to a "Disneyfication" of the Holy City as much as Israel's "architecture of occupation."

"Trumpeted by right-wing Israeli leaders as a green solution to the challenges of increased tourism and traffic in and around the Old City," Kimmelman writes, "the plan has provoked howls of protest from horrified Israeli preservationists, environmentalists, planners, architects and others who picture an ancient global heritage site turned into a Jewish-themed Epcot, with thousands of passengers an hour crammed into huge gondolas lofting across the sky."

Israeli-born Canadian architect Moshe Safdie is among the vocal opponents of the cable car.

Fire quickly put out in Jerusalem's treasured Al-Aqsa Mosque, no damage reported

2019-04-16T16:31:00-04:00

Footage showing smoke and fire emerging from the roof of a structure known as the Marwani Prayer Room, or Solomon's Stables...The Palestine News Agency, the official outlet of the Palestinian National Authority, cited a guard as saying Monday that "the fire broke out in the guard's room outside the roof of the Marwani Prayer Room, and the fire brigade of the Islamic Waqf handled the matter successfully." No injuries or damage was reported during the short blaze.

On the same day that a harrowing fire damaged the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, some nerves were rattled at the fire that broke out yesterday in the Marwani Prayer Room in Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest site in Islam. The fire is said to have occurred above the prayer hall in an open area.

No interior damage or injuries have been reported after the fire was quickly put out. According to Sheikh Azzam al-Khatib, director general of the Jerusalem Waqf and Al-Aqsa Mosque Affairs Department, the fire broke out in the courtyard and may have been caused by children.

US Embassy in Jerusalem will cost at least $20M more than Trump's $250,000 bargain estimate

2018-07-19T15:39:00-04:00

President Donald Trump boasted earlier this year that the US would spend only $200,000 to $300,000 on a new US Embassy in Jerusalem, but it seems the project will cost nearly $20 million more than that estimate. [...] The US spent just under $400,000 on modifications to the consular facility that allowed it to open as the US Embassy in May, but the State Department told CNN at the time that it planned "for construction of a new extension [...] as well as for additional security enhancements"

Back in March, the 'Builder in Chief' promised that the highly controversial new United States Embassy in Jerusalem would have to be built "very quickly and very inexpensively" at a bargain price tag of around $250,000. According to documents made public this month, the State Department however recently awarded a $21.2 million contract to the firm Desbuild Limak D&K to design and build an extension and compound security upgrades to the former consular building in Jerusalem's Arnona neighborhood—nearly 100 times the original estimate.

The Palestinian Museum opens its first show: Jerusalem Lives

2017-08-25T18:41:00-04:00

The Palestinian Museum opens its inaugural exhibition this weekend focusing on the holy city of Jerusalem, a city that both Israel and Palestine claim as their capital. The wide-ranging, overtly political show focuses on the realities of living in Jerusalem as well as the idea that despite being seen as the original global city, it also serves an example of how globalization has failed worldwide.

The Palestinian Museum, located in Birzeit, Palestine’s West Bank, opened last May. Back then, however, the $24 million structure designed by Heneghan Peng Architects had no exhibits to show due to a sudden resignation of the museum's former director.

Its first show, Jerusalem Lives (Tahya Al Quds), on view from August 27, is participatory, consisting of four chapters that examine the cultural, political, economic and ideological aspects of Jerusalem. The exhibit will include works by contemporary artists, a display of 20 large-scale commissions in the museum’s extensive gardens 'based on ideas about land, openness and non-exclusion', featuring artists such as Mona Hatoum, Emily Jacir, Khaled Jarrar, and many more. Additionally, supporting events and programs will be held at other Palestinian institutions.

“What is going on and why are these exclusionary policies being accepted? How are people—artists, organisations and civil society—working against it? And how can we build togethe...

Downtown Jerusalem gets a Libeskind-designed Pyramid Tower

2015-07-28T13:20:00-04:00

A new high-rise building called the Freedom Pyramid will change the face of Jerusalem’s downtown area. The project, conceived by architects Daniel Libeskind and Yigal Levi, will see a multi-purpose tower comprising commercial shopping and residential units atop the old Eden theater. The idea for a high-rise at this location, adjacent to Mahaneh Yehuda market, first hit headlines in 2011. But a Jerusalem municipal committee only now approved the construction.

Correction: Studio Daniel Libeskind has informed us that the correct project title is "The Pyramid." The incorrect title "Freedom Pyramid" has been the result of an unauthorized press leak.

Studio Daniel Libeskind also provided us with new renderings of the project as well as some more information about The Pyramid:

The Jerusalem Municipality approves a mixed-use tower designed by Studio Libeskind (New York/Milan/Zurich) in conjunction with local architect Yigal Levi.

Located adjacent to the Mahane Yehuda market, commonly known as “The Shuk”, in the heart of the city, the 105-meter, 26-story complex entitled The Pyramid will feature 200 apartments, a boutique hotel, a public plaza lined with shops, and a roof-top observatory and restaurant that will provide sweeping views of the ancient city.

“The Pyramid mediates between ancient traditions and myths, while providing a 21st century reinterpretation of that great form,” said architect Daniel Libeskind. “The design complements the context...

Israel okays plan of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem

2015-04-01T15:09:00-04:00

I had doubts about accepting this project. I didn’t want to become a pawn for politicians, but the residents gave me a mandate. The public understood that it could act collectively in order to improve its situation - Architect

Project's architect Senan Abdelkader is well known to NY Times a few years back via Nicolai Ouroussoff.

A distinct aesthetic language from Senan Abdelkader: an apartment building in an Arab neighborhood near Bethlehem.

An apartment building, designed by Senan Abdelkader, in an Arab neighborhood near Bethlehem

Let's just say this is not another maneuver by Netanyahu government to ease off the international pressure on Israeli-Palestinian relations.

Leading Saudi artist focuses on the modernisation of Mecca and Jerusalem

2014-07-30T14:30:00-04:00

The leading Saudi artist Ahmed Mater, who caused a stir with a series of photographs depicting the rampant redevelopment around Mecca, is due to take part in his first public talk in the UK at Sotheby’s London (12 August). Mater will also discuss this work in relation to other cities such as Jerusalem and Medina during the discussion, entitled “Contemporary photography and hybrid architecture”.

RIBA proposes boycott of Israeli Association of United Architects' over Palestinian settlements

2014-03-20T13:37:00-04:00

The Royal Institute of British Architects (Riba) has demanded the suspension of the Israeli Association of United Architects (IAUA) from the international body, saying it is complicit in the construction of illegal settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and other violations of international law.

UPDATE: AIA New York fires back at RIBA over proposed boycott of Israeli Association of United Architects

The full RIBA motion, proposed by RIBA Immediate Past President, Angela Brady, and passed by the RIBA council on March 19 was:

Since the Israeli Association of United Architects (IAUA) has paid no regard to the UIA resolution 13* of 2005 and 2009, the RIBA calls on the UIA, as the international guardian of professional and ethical standards in our profession, to suspend the membership of the Israeli Association of United Architects, until it acts to resist these illegal projects, and observes international law, and the UIA Accords and Resolution 13.

*UIA's Resolution 13 (2005 and 2009) states that “The UIA Council condemns development projects and the construction of buildings on land that has been ethnically purified or illegally appropriated, and projects based on regulations that are ethnically or culturally discriminatory, and similarly it condemns all action contravening the f...

Can Architecture Help Solve the Israeli-Palestinian Dispute?

2013-08-21T15:20:00-04:00

“We’re trying to fill the gap between the broad stroke of policymaking and the reality of life on the ground,” says Bar-Sinai, who recently returned to Israel after a yearlong fellowship at Harvard University. “Only thinking about these questions from the 30,000 foot high perspective isn’t enough.”

Previously: The secret to peace in the Middle East, at an architectural expo