Jerusalem in Detail is a new exhibition that opened in October at the Israel Museum that highlights often overlooked but highly symbolic design motifs hidden in Jerusalem’s streets and buildings. The exhibition was inspired by David Kroyanker’s research, foremost chronicler of Jerusalem architecture. David Kroyanker is an Israeli architect and architectural historian of Jerusalem who has written dozens of popular books about Jerusalem neighborhoods, streets, and buildings, and urban planning.
The exhibition enables visitors to hone their observational skills and discover the functional and decorative details that say so much about the many nations, cultures, and ways of life that left their mark over the centuries. The display spotlights Jerusalem’s cosmopolitan visual richness and whets the appetite for further exploration of the city.
The exhibition, housed in the main gallery of the museum, is organized according to the various types of architectural details that show how different “builders” left their imprint on Jerusalem over the ages. The photographs and images shown in the exhibition include oversized shots of street scenes, highlight the facades of buildings and their often looked-over architectural details. Some of the photographs home in on stone masonry, where others look at the Armenian ceramics or decorative ironworks that were melted into the front gates of grand, Arab-owned villas in Talbieh.
There is an audio guide created for the exhibit which gives viewers the possibility to listen to Kroyanker telling, in his own words, how he made his discoveries and researched their connections.
Curator: Dan Handel
The exhibition closes March 2018.
www.imj.org.il/en/exhibitions/jerusalem-detail
- Images by (c) Assaf Evron
