Peace Peres House

A home port for all sailors and a haven for the shipwrecked. To imagine a place that is not virtual, but real. To be dedicated to Peace, is an immensely taxing undertaking of profound ethical significance. Peace is a spiritual condition, an aspiration: tension and utopia. The projection of will into the future is also an expression of hope that our children and future generation will live in a better world.

Peace cannot be enclosed in wrapping: it’s, rather, a sensation of fullness and serenity that can be communicated through a place, or through architecture. I have thought of a series of layers, a building that represents TIME and PATIENCE in strata of alternating materials representing places that have suffered heavily. Concrete composed of alternating and superimposed types of sand and aggregate. A stone basement to raise the building, a meeting place from which two long staircase lead to a place of “rest”, whose size and height, full of light from above, helps us to forget the troubles of the world, and fill us with the positive attitude that is needed for our meeting with other men and other women.

The outside of the building has alternate layers of concrete and translucent glass. The transparency of the glass will filter the light through to the inside during the day, and by night will send it back outside, entrusting this magical image with the spiritual and concrete message the site will inspire. Architecture today must set itself as an aid, a hand to help us cope with the difficulties.

Peres Center for Peace

Studio Fuksas

Project Leader in Israel: Michal Schaffer
Local Architect: Yoav Messer Architects Ltd, Tel Aviv
Landscape Architects: TeMA, Tel Aviv
Engineering: Rokach-Ashkenazi - Engineer, Consultant Ltd.
Structures Contractor: Kal-Binian Ltd
Engineering Contractor: Rom Geves Ltd