JCDA’s vision for the expansion and renewal of the Israel Museum’s 20-acre campus was to reorganize the campus plan and poetically moderate Jerusalem’s intense natural light within new, innovative all-glass pavilions. A sequential and engaging experience of subtle light effects connected to the surrounding landscape, provides intuitive wayfinding, enhancing the visitor experience of the Museum’s collections.

The structure and form of the four new glass pavilions, created to support visitor circulation, echo the modernist geometry of the Museum’s original buildings. At the same time, the pavilions provide a visual counterpoint to the stone-clad facades of the original buildings, which present the Museum’s collection and exhibitions in isolation. Each glass pavilion is enclosed by terracotta light-redirecting louvers designed to transmit a sense of the exterior landscape into the buildings while entirely blocking the transmission of direct light. Captured on the interior plane of the louvers, a continuous play of light, shadow, and color is broadcast by the louver geometry.

The Israel Museum’s campus enhancement project was designed to resonate with the original design vision of Alfred Mansfeld and Dora Gad, infusing light and a clarity of circulation into a built environment that had changed tremendously since its opening in 1965. JCDA designed 95,000 square feet of new construction, including three Entrance Pavilions standing at the front of the campus housing ticketing, restaurant, and retail, a main Gallery Entrance Pavilion providing centralized access to the Museum’s main galleries, and a major below-ground Route of Passage that connects the two parts of the campus.