Design Museum Holon (Ron Arad, architect)

“A colorful riff on Frank Lloyd Wright’s famous Guggenheim Museum in New York.”

The Design Museum Holon is a small institution housed in what might be described as a colorful riff on Frank Lloyd Wright’s famous Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. Designed by artist-architect Ron Arad, the museum’s exterior resembles swirling lines of ribbon in shades gradating from orange to deep rusty purple. The museum opened its doors in 2010; since then the themes of its shows have been wide ranging, including: the nexus of technology and fashion, Japanese master couturier Yohji Yamamoto, designer/illustrator Bruno Munari, 3-D printing, Bedouin women’s folk art, bicycle design, and an examination of the role of shade in urban settings (of particular interest in a country as sunny as Israel). The Design Museum is transforming the city of Holon into a cultural destination.

Design Museum Holon

Model of Ancient Jerusalem at the Israel Museum. Photo by Matthew Shugart, courtesy Creative Commons

“[The Israel Museum is an] experiential journey that is universal in nature and embracing of all time.”

— James Snyder, director of the Israel Museum

Museum buildings are often showpieces for great architects (consider the Guggenheim’s monumental buildings in New York and Bilbao—proud examples by Frank Lloyd Wright and Frank Gehry respectively). The Israel Museum in Jerusalem undertook a three-year overhaul, nearly doubling the exhibition spaces and providing welcome new perspectives on its massive collection. Undaunted by the millennia of history on display here, from the Dead Sea Scrolls to works commissioned for the space by contemporary artists Anish Kapoor and Olafur Eliasson, the museum’s director, James Snyder, describes it as providing an “experiential journey that is universal in nature and embracing of all time.”

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