אַלביתשאן

The project emerges from the experience of the uncanny in Beit She’an: a sense of estrangement that arises within an intimate and familiar space, and from my own encounter, as someone born in the Beit She’an Valley, with a place that is close and homelike, yet to a great extent unfamiliar. At the heart of the project lies the disconnection between the modern city and the ancient city, which today exists as a separate entity, fenced off and detached from the everyday life of the city’s residents. The design seeks to read the city of Beit She’an as an urban palimpsest: a space in which layers of time coexist side by side. Through a new urban system, the antiquities are transformed from a fenced and isolated site into an active part of the public realm and of everyday life. The urban intervention seeks to connect the historical focal points with the modern city. At the heart of this system, in the space between the modern city and the ancient city, stands a public building containing a museum, a library, and a research wing of the Israel Antiquities Authority. The building serves as a gateway, a passage, and a connection between the city and the national park. Embedded within the topography, it does not compete with the archaeological remains, but rather grows out of them, echoes their axes, and allows both residents and visitors to encounter the story of Beit She’an. In this way, the historic heart of the city is transformed from a resource situated beside it into a place that belongs to the city, to its residents, and to its identity.