Tel Aviv Museum of Art / Preston Scott Cohen

May 2011

By Kelly Minner — Filed under: Museums and Libraries , Israel, Preston Scott Cohen, Tel Aviv

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The Tel Aviv Museum of Art, located in the center of the city’s cultural complex and designed by Preston Scott Cohen has completed construction and will open to the public shortly. The program for the Tel Aviv Museum of Art Amir Building posed an extraordinary architectural challenge: to resolve the tension between the tight, idiosyncratic triangular site and the museum’s need for a series of large, neutral rectangular galleries. The solution: subtly twisting geometric surfaces (hyperbolic parabolas) that connect the disparate angles between the galleries and the context while refracting natural light into the deepest recesses of the half buried building.

Architects: Preston Scott Cohen
Location: Tel Aviv, Israel
Project Area: 200,000 sqf
Project Year: 2007-2011
Photographs: Courtesy of Preston Scott Cohen

Courtesy of Preston Scott Cohensection

The building represents an unusual synthesis of two opposing paradigms for the contemporary museum: the museum of neutral white boxes and the museum of architectural spectacle. Individual, rectangular galleries are organized around the “Lightfall”, an eighty-seven foot tall spiraling atrium. The building is composed according to multiple axes that deviate significantly from floor to floor. In essence, it is a series of independent plans and steel structural systems stacked one atop the other, connected by geometric episodes of vertical circulation.

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The new building refers to the original building in such a way that the two can be seen as having a family resemblance. At the same time, it relates to a larger tradition of the new that exists within Israeli architectural culture. The multiple vocabularies of Mendelsohn and Bauhaus Modernism in Tel Aviv are re-synthesized in an architectural language that is internationalist and progressive in its cultural orientation.

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Client: Motti Omer, Director and Chief Curator
Project Team: Preston Scott Cohen, Inc., Cambridge, MA, Preston Scott Cohen (Design); Amit Nemlich (Project Architect); Tobias Nolte, Steven Christensen, Guy Nahum, Gjergj Bakallbashi, Bohsung Kong (Project Assistants); Models: Jonathan Lott (Lightfall); Isamu Kanda (Massing in Situ); Renderings: Chris Hoxie (Exterior, Lightfall); Agito Design Studios (Lobby and Gallery Views); Competition Project Team: Scott Cohen, Cameron Wu, Andrew Saunders, Janny Baek; Competition Consultants: Ove Arup and Partners, Caroline Fitzgerald, Tom Dawes, Mark Walsh-Cooke (Structural and MEP); Hanscomb Faithful and Gould (Cost Estimator)
Project Schedule: First Prize Winner in the Herta and Paul Amir International Competition, 2003; Design Development and Construction Documents, 2005-2007; Construction, 2007-2010
General Contractor: Hezkelevitch Engineering
Project Consultants: Project Management: CPM Construction Management Ltd.; Structural Engineers: YSS Consulting Engineers Ltd., Dani Shacham, Principal; HVAC: M. Doron – I. Shahar and Co., Consulting Eng. Ltd.; Lighting: Tillotson Design Associates, New York; Accessibility: Michael Roitman; Acoustics: M.G. Acistical Consultants Ltd.; Alluminum: Landman; Auditorium: David Braslavi; Cost Estimation: Gamzo; Electrical: U. Brener – A. Fattal Electrical and Systems Engineering Ltd.; Elevators: ESL- Eng. S. Lustig – Consulting Engineers Ltd.; Food Services: Zonnenstein; Maintenance: Valtman; Multi-media: Gera Yoav; Public Shelter: K.A.M.N; Safety: S. Netanel Engineers Ltd.; Sanitation: Gruber Art System Engineering Ltd.; Security: H.M.T., Tel Aviv; Soil: David David; Survey: B. Gattenyu; Traffic: Dagesh Engineering, Traffic and Road Design Ltd.; Waterproofing: Bittelman; Photography: Iwan Baan, Ohad Malaton