Destroyed, besieged, and repeatedly conquered for at least 3,000 years, Jerusalem is a city disputed by the three major monotheistic religions – Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Cosmopolitan and multiethnic, proclaimed as Israel’s capital in 1980 and home to the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, Jerusalem is also an infinitely rich mine of architectural styles and histories. A mine that goes far beyond its old city, surrounded by ancient walls, and includes Ottoman, Byzantine, Neo-Gothic, Romanesque, as well as Modernist, Brutalist, and contemporary buildings. Noteworthy among them is Moshe Safdie’s spectacular Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum.

Jerusalem is the vibrant academic and cultural center of the country with its five academies of art and design, theaters, film schools, and its Design Week (held annually since 2012). As evidence, we mention two recent buildings: the new headquarters of the national library designed by Herzog & de Meuron, and the new campus of the Bezalel Academy designed by the Japanese studio SANAA. We have thus chosen nine architectural works realized in the 20th and 21st centuries that trace the recent evolutions of the holy city. These are echoed by the most recent architecture by the AAU Anastas studio in nearby Bethlehem: their Wonder Cabinet promises to be an exuberant cultural platform open to all Palestinian artists.

“Toward the north, a volcanic eruption of light and life.” This is how Moshe Safdie – the Israeli-Canadian architect famous for the colossal prefabricated residential utopia known as Habitat 67 in Montreal – described Yad Vashem. Inaugurated in 2005, the Holocaust memorial is his most spectacular project. A memorial, sculpture, and museum all in one, Yad Vashem is a 183-meter-long concrete prism that runs across Mount Herzl from south to north, pointing like a telescope towards Jerusalem. The Hall of Names, both theatrical and emotional, is a 9-meter-high cone that commemorates by name all the Holocaust victims known to us, while a cone penetrating the rock downward memorializes those who will never be identified. The journey concludes with an overhanging panoramic terrace overlooking the valley, symbolically connecting the Holocaust to the foundation of the country.

After designing New York’s Empire State Building in 1931, Chicago architect Arthur Loomis Harmon combined elements of Byzantine, Gothic, Neo-Moorish, and Romanesque architecture in this impressive Art Deco building. He chooses to fill it with symbolic references to pay homage to the three major monotheistic faiths of the holy city. For instance, the cypresses in the courtyard are 12 as the tribes of Israel, the disciples of Christ, and the followers of Muhammad. The columns in the entrance atrium are 40, symbolizing the years of Israelites’ wandering in the desert and the days of Jesus’ temptation. Once the headquarters of the Young Men’s Christian Association, it is now an esteemed hotel known for its simplicity in rooms and the quality of its restaurant. The 45-meter-high tower, offering a panoramic view of East and West Jerusalem, is worth a visit.

Built in the 1970s in Ramot, one of the neighborhoods that emerged after the Six-Day War in the newly conquered territories, the Ramot Polin residential complex, designed by Israeli architect Zvi Hecker, consists of 720 prefabricated housing units. Experimental in form (a series of modular dodecahedrons constructed from pentagonal concrete slabs functioning as load-bearing walls), it has been likened to a chemical molecular structure or a beehive. The original design, now significantly modified by its residents, resembled five fingers, each containing five or six interconnected apartment buildings with internal courtyards. In the central area, shops, schools, community facilities, and parking lots were clustered together.

A decade-long story marks the first project in Jerusalem by the Swiss firm Herzog & de Meuron, realized in partnership with the local Tel Aviv-based studio Mann Shinar Architects & Planners. Commissioned in 2013 and set to open by the end of 2023, the new headquarters of the National Library of Israel occupies a sloping triangular plot, in front of the Israel Museum and next to the Knesset, the seat of the Parliament. Overarched at the center by a large circular skylight, the sculptural volume covered in local limestone has a curved and cantilevered shape at its ends. The 45,000-square-meter building is designed to be sustainable, thanks to solar panels on the roof and carefully placed openings and incisions to minimize solar heat on the back windows.

Inaugurated in November 2022, the new campus of the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, the oldest art and design school of the country, is designed by SANAA in collaboration with the local firm HQ Architects, winners of an international competition in 2011. It is an open and transparent architecture, a volume divided into overlapping terraces that create a sort of village, with buildings connected by pathways and squares. Adhering to a regulation dating back to 1918 during the British Mandate, which required the use of Jerusalem stone for building facades, the designers created a mixture of concrete and local stone aggregates for the cladding.

Founded in 2005 by Raphie Etgar, the current artistic director, the Museum on the Seam defines itself as a “socio-political museum of contemporary art.” It aims at presenting “controversial social issues in public debate” and demonstrating how art is an effective means of bringing people together. From the right to protest to the decline of Western hegemony, nothing is too contentious for this institution housed in a neoclassical building. The architecture itself is a stone manifesto of conflict: designed in 1932 by Palestinian Christian architect Andoni Baramki, expropriated in 1948 (and never returned to its rightful owner), turned into a military outpost by the Israeli army, and repeatedly hit by bullets and grenades in 1967. Don’t miss the rooftop bar with a 360-degree view of the city.

A modernist icon, the Shrine of the Book is a wing of the Israel Museum built to house, among others, the Aleppo Codex and the Dead Sea Scrolls, ancient biblical manuscripts found on the northern shore of the Dead Sea in the West Bank. It presents itself as a white dome, resembling an onion in shape, covering an underground structure, and reflecting in a water basin. Inaugurated in 1965, it is one of the last works of Frederick Kiesler (who died the same year), designed with American architect and philanthropist Armand Phillip Bartos.

Designed in 1887 by German architect Conrad Schick, Hansen House was originally a leper colony for Jerusalem’s Protestant community in the elegant and wealthy neighborhood of Talbiya. In 2009, the Israeli government handed over the building to the municipality of Jerusalem to convert it into an interdisciplinary cultural center. Within its walls, there is a cinema, a FabLab, a lush garden, academic programs of the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, and the residences of the Mamuta Art & Media Center. One week a year, at the end of June, it hosts the Jerusalem Design Week, an event that has attracted 40,000 visitors annually since 2011, organized and managed by Hansen House and Ran Wolf company with the support of the Ministry of Jerusalem and the JDA (Jerusalem Development Authority). The last edition (June 22-29, 2023) was curated by Dana Benshalom and Sonja Olitsky, with the artistic direction of philosopher Jeremy Fogel. Lies & Falsehoods was this year’s theme. It is worth taking the time for a culinary stop at the Ofaimme café, whose cuisine draws from organic ingredients from a farm in the Negev Desert.

Designed by German architect Heinz Rau and Brazilian David Reznick (a student of Niemeyer and author of the nearby John Kennedy Memorial), this tiny synagogue was commissioned in 1957 for the Givat Ram university campus after the university’s headquarters on Mount Scopus became an inaccessible enclave in Jordanian territory. The building takes the form of a reinforced concrete shell and can accommodate about a hundred worshipers. Supported by eight arches and standing 3.7 meters high, the semi-spherical dome is separated from the ground below by an empty space that makes it appear suspended in mid-air and allows light to filter into the otherwise windowless interior from below.

The entire campus, with the landscape design by Lawrence Halprin and other buildings designed by Rau and Munio Gitai (a disciple of Mies), is worth a visit.

Bethlehem, in Palestine, is just 5 km from Jerusalem, a fifteen-minute taxi ride or half an hour by bus. However, for over 20 years, a wall of 8 meters high cement has separated them. Crossing it is quick for tourists, forbidden for those with Israeli passports, and can be very frustrating for Palestinians. Nevertheless, it is worth it. Once you cross the ‘border’, the territory immediately becomes more rural, less tamed. A few kilometers apart, Palestinian refugee camps and settlements of settlers represent the two sides of the same coin. It is in this context that Palestinian Christian architects Elias and Yousef Anastas opened Wonder Cabinet in May of last year. A building of sober and essential elegance, made of raw concrete, steel, and glass, crafted skillfully by local artisans under the brand Local Industries. Inside, a triple-height space with interconnected floors will host a dense program of various cultural activities: exhibitions, performances, workshops, courses. An open platform for the Palestinian artistic community. Not to be missed.