Ashdod Museum of Art

2000-2003 (Exhibition Spaces and Interiors)

The design of the Ashdod Museum of Art accepts but challenges the notion of the White Cube as the modern ideal space for exhibiting art. A series of White Cubes were scattered and piled one on top of each other, in three levels, within an emptied out existing building interior.   A new and independent structure, made of the repetition of the uniformly dimensioned rectangular rooms (White Cubes), was constructed within the existing shell. Two kinds of spaces were created: the interior of the White Cube, and the irregularly shaped ‘left over’ spaces trapped between the exterior of the White Cubes and the interior of the existing building. The visitor moves between these spaces, in and out of the White Cubes. The outcome is an ambiguous structural circuit that runs through the different parts of the exhibition. The visual, spatial, and material elements of the design create a composition that promotes chance discoveries and unexpected encounters.

Total built area: 1400 sqm
Materials: Steel, Plywood, Gypsum boards.

In collaboration with Eyal Weizman, Manuel Herz
Project Architect: Merav Twig
Client: Ashdod Municipality

  • Founded by inventor, industrialist and philanthropist Peter Cooper in 1859, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art offers education in art, architecture and engineering, as well as courses in the humanities and social sciences.

  • “My feelings, my desires, my hopes, embrace humanity throughout the world,” Peter Cooper proclaimed in a speech in 1853. He looked forward to a time when, “knowledge shall cover the earth as waters cover the great deep.”

  • From its beginnings, Cooper Union was a unique institution, dedicated to founder Peter Cooper's proposition that education is the key not only to personal prosperity but to civic virtue and harmony.

  • Peter Cooper wanted his graduates to acquire the technical mastery and entrepreneurial skills, enrich their intellects and spark their creativity, and develop a sense of social justice that would translate into action.