We’re very excited to see the Bezalel Academy of Art & Design new campus, be featured at the Wallpaper * magazine, following the new campus's official opening for the Academic year in November 2022. The building, designed by Japan-based SANAA in collaboration with HQ Architects, offers a new home for the school, moving it from its former location on the outskirts of the city, right to Jerusalem’s very heart. The 42,000 m² new campus, combines design innovation with local influences, presenting a building with evident attention to detail that is blending with the historic surrounding environment, creating a contemporary building yet with a strong Jerusalemite feel in its architecture and spatial experience. ‘Materiality also played a key role in connecting the building to its context, as the team followed local planning regulations around material use, and created a concrete mix that uses local stone aggregates. ‘We did dozens of mock-ups in order to find the right mix and colour,’ HQ Architects’ founder, Jerusalem-born Erez Ella recalls. ‘We also showed that this building is very Jerusalem in the way it’s built, it has little alleys, many different vistas. We wanted to show that we can make it feel like its place, without being too literal about it.’
