Israel Museum

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Aerial photograph of the Israel Museum, with the Knesset in the background. Taken in March 2007.

The Israel Museum, Jerusalem (Hebrew: מוזיאון ישראל, ירושלים‎, Muze'on Yisrael, Yerushalayim) was founded in 1965 as Israel's national museum. It is situated on a hill in the Givat Ram neighborhood of Jerusalem, near the Knesset, the Israeli Supreme Court, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kollek was the driving spirit behind its establishment.

The museum complex was designed in the late 1950s by Alfred Mansfeld and Dora Gad, with the Shrine of the Book designed by Armand Phillip Bartos and Frederick John Kiesler, and the Billy Rose sculpture garden designed by Isamu Noguchi.^[1] It is an example of postwar Modernist architecture consisting of low, rectangular, flat-roofed buildings spread out on the hilltop, surrounded by a maze of courtyards. The museum is currently undergoing major renovations scheduled for completion by the end of 2009.

Covering an area of 47,000 square meters on a 20-acre site, the museum is ten times larger than it was when it opened. Under the current plan, new buildings will be added and the long walk up to the entrance will be shortened. ^[2]

The museum today includes extensive collections of Judaica, ethnography, fine art, artifacts from Africa, North and South America, Oceania and the Far East, archeology, rare manuscripts, ancient glass and sculpture. A uniquely designed building on the grounds of the museum, the Shrine of the Book, houses the Dead Sea Scrolls and artifacts discovered on Masada. The youth wing, comprising galleries, workshops, classrooms and a children's library, runs educational programs for schools and year-round art classes for children and adults. The scale model of the Second Temple Jerusalem, formerly displayed at the Holyland Hotel, is now located at an outdoor location at the Israel Museum.

[edit] References

^ Charles S. Spencer. The Israel National Museum Studio International. 1965, Volume 170, 64–67.
^ Steven Erlanger. Toward a more user-friendly Israel Museum International Herald Tribune. August 13, 2007.