Thursday, June 29, 2006

THE SCALE MODEL OF SECOND TEMPLE JERUSALEM which has been relocated to the Israel Museum gets a bad review in Haaretz:
Rock of our existence, at a scale of 1:50
By Esther Zandberg


The model of Jerusalem during the Second Temple period, built during the 1960s at the capital's Holyland Hotel, was never just another nice, innocent tourist attraction, as it should have been. The Second Temple model presents Jerusalem in its glory days, during the rule of King Herod in 66 C.E., and the Herodian architecture in all its imaginary splendor. Despite - or perhaps because of - the lack of scientific credibility, it has become fraught with political and national significance.

[...]

The new project suffers from the architectural version of the "Jerusalem syndrome" that has consumed significant portions of the city. Its most obvious symptoms are a heavy, complicated style that smacks of overdone archaism and vast expanses of chiseled stone that are completely divorced from the museum's modern, secular, elegant atmosphere. Even the model itself is almost lost in the crowd. This project would never have passed muster with Herod: Cruel as he was, he knew what architectural excellence was.

[...]
Ouch.

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