Yerushalayim’s Convention Center Survives City Entrance Project

By Hamodia Staff

YERUSHALAYIM — The International Convention Center building in Yerushalayim, also known as Binyanei Ha’uma, will survive the city’s redevelopment plans which had called for a total makeover of the historic site.

The building was to be torn down and then rebuilt on an expanded blueprint under the City Entrance project, a NIS 1.8 billion investment aimed at reinvigorating the entrance to the capital with new office buildings, hotels, leisure and cultural spaces and two light rail lines.

But after a stormy session of the municipality’s conservation committee, it was decided to let the structure stand, with architects tasked with creating a new design that will see the building’s original style maintained, according to Haaretz.

At the decisive meeting, opponents of the original plan argued that “conserving only a small part of the building is a crime… destroying the building would mean the erasure of a unique architectural period in Israeli history and in global architectural history.”