Israel Museum, Jerusalem

LOCATION: Jerusalem
PROGRAMME: Museum – renovation and additions
SIZE: 25,000 m²
STATUS: Completed – 2010
CLIENT: The Israel Museum
ARCHITECTS: James Carpenter Design Associates, NYC; Efrat-Kowalsky Architects (EKA), Tel Aviv; A. Lerman Architects, Tel Aviv
PHOTOGRAPHY: Reid Freeman; Tim Hursley (courtesy of The Israel Museum, Jerusalem)

Given our experience and expertise in projects involving intervention in existing buildings, we were selected to complete the team of architects, which includes the design offices of JCDA from New York and Efrat-Kowalsky Architects from Tel Aviv.
Our proven ability to lead complex projects that demand the highest standards of execution led the museum team and the management company Nitzan Inbar to select our office, from a long list of architectural firms, to lead the tender and construction stages of the most prestigious project in Israel today and bring it from paper to reality.
The main goal of the museum renewal project is to increase accessibility and improve the various services the museum provides.
This was achieved by creating a new underground passage that begins at the entrance complex, itself also new, and continues to a central circulation building located at the heart of the museum.

This building provides easy and convenient access directly to the museum's main exhibition level, without the need to climb the outdoor stairs to the upper level and then descend back to the main exhibition level.
Movement through the exhibition area has improved significantly thanks to the design of a new space – the Cardo – from which the museum's various wings are accessed: the Archaeology Wing (Bronfman Wing), the Temporary Exhibitions Wing, Western Art, Non-Western Art, the Auditorium, and the Judaica and Ethnography Wing.

The project includes the construction of seven new buildings, as well as the renewal and reorganization of all the exhibition spaces.
The new addition includes an entrance complex made up of three buildings: a ticketing building, a restaurant and cafeteria building, and a building housing the museum shop. In addition, a new underground passage, a central circulation building, and a new office building located in the southern part of the museum, serving the staff, were designed.