Israeli National Library in Jerusalem from H&deM

In the competition for the Israeli National Library in Jerusalem, architect Rafi Segal originally won in September 2012, drawing on his professional experience gained at the Israeli firm of Zvi Hecker and the American office of KPF. After the authorship was disputed and legal proceedings followed, during which a former colleague at Harvard University accused him of appropriating his project, an expert committee chaired by Spanish architect Luis Fernández-Galiano Ruiz commissioned the Basel firm Herzog & de Meuron, which had prevailed in the selection process against the Italian firm Renzo Piano and California's Frank Gehry office.
H&deM will collaborate on the design with the Tel Aviv office Amir Mann - Ami Shinar Architects. The ten-story library (of which six are above ground) will cover a total area of 34,000 m² and will be built in the Kiryat HaLeom government district at the foot of the Knesset (the "Assembly" building of the legislative body of Israel) near the Israel Museum, the science museum, and the Hebrew University. The National Library was previously part of the Hebrew University library and was located in the Lady Davis building on the Technion university campus from the 1960s. The new library will serve not only scholarly and study functions but will also be a venue for educational, cultural, and social activities. Behind the curved stone façade will hide a central study hall with a giant circular skylight. Construction of the library is set to begin in the year after next, with completion expected in 2019.