Cornerstone laid for $50 million Jerusalem arts campus
Bezalel Street site designed to house four academic institutions and host performances
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleJessica Steinberg, The Times of Israel's culture and lifestyles editor, covers the Sabra scene from south to north and back to the center
The cornerstore for a multipurpose, nearly 2.5-acre arts campus on Bezalel Street in downtown Jerusalem was laid Monday morning by Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat.
The $50 million campus will bring together four Jerusalem academic arts institutions — the Nisan Nativ Acting Studio, the Sam Spiegel Film and Television School, the School of Visual Theater and the Center for Middle Eastern Music.
Located next to the Gerard Behar Center on Bezalel Street, the campus is expected to accommodate 1,110 students in total.
It will also be designed to serve as a main thoroughfare through the central neighborhoods of downtown Jerusalem, drawing pedestrians and visitors from Nahlaot, the nearby Mahane Yehuda market area, and the satellite Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design campus just up the block.
Barkat called the campus, designed with an outdoor courtyard and performance venues, one of Jerusalem’s most strategic projects, intended to help the city continue its “cultural revolution” by providing much needed infrastructure and support for artists and the cultural institutions of the city.
The compound will be named for the Kirsh family of New York, which donated $10 million for the campus, a project of the UJA-Federation of New York, in cooperation with the Jerusalem Municipality, the Ministry of Jerusalem and Diaspora Affairs, the Jerusalem Development Authority, the Eden Company and the Jerusalem Foundation.
The campus is slated to open in January 2020.
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