The building

  • The building
  • The building
  • The building
  • The building
  • The building
The building

The Palestinian Museum is a modern architectural feat atop a green hill overlooking the Mediterranean coast, in the town of Birzeit alongside Birzeit University, 7km north of Ramallah and 25 km north of Jerusalem.

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  • Architectural Design
  • Architectural Design
  • Architectural Design
  • Architectural Design
  • Architectural Design
  • Architectural Design
Architectural Design

The Museum was designed by Irish architecture company Heneghan Peng on an area of land measuring 40 dunums. It is an exemplar of contemporary design whose construction blends seamlessly with the sanasil, or the stone wall terraces of the local Palestinian rural landscape. The building is surrounded by a series of gardens, which include among its stones a variety of indigenous plants, as well as plants that have been imported through the ages.

Covering an area of 3000 m2, the building contains exhibition spaces, a glass gallery, an open-air amphitheatre, an educational centre, a screening room, secure storage for collections, a digitisation studio, a collections photography studio, an indoor and outdoor cafeteria, staff offices, and public facilities.

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  • Gardens
  • Gardens
  • Gardens
  • Gardens
  • Gardens
  • Gardens
Gardens

Palestine is distinguished by its rich variety of native and non-native flora alike. The local Palestinian landscape is a product of both the natural landscape, with its vegetation, and the cultural landscape of plants grown in this environment and related traditions, whether indigenous or naturalised over time.

The influence on Palestine from various civilisations is evident in the Museum gardens, whose design integrates the contrasting themes of ‘cultural’ and ‘natural’. This dynamic unfolds in the variation of the wild and domesticated plants as we approach the building.

The gardens, designed by Jordanian landscape architect Lara Zureikat, tell the story of the different phases of the agricultural and botanical history of Palestine across its various stages.

Visitors who move between the gardens can enjoy aromatic plants and medicinal herbs and legumes and field grains, surrounded by wild and fruitful trees. Due to their seasonal nature, the plants alternate in presence; some will grow while others fade with the change of seasons.

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