The Davidson Centre is woven into the excavated site of an Umayyad palace at the southwestern corner of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. On a programmatic level, the brief required the transformation of an antique basement into an innovative archaeological museum. Above and beyond this, there was the issue of dealing with a monumental, extremely sensitive site. The solution was to have only two elements emerge above the plane surface: a transparent glass structure, which magnifies the mass of the ancient walls, and an oculus, made of steel and glass, which hints at the existence of the contemporary structure below.

Source: Aga Khan Trust for Culture