The collaboration between Libeskind and Tel-Aviv architecture firm The Heder Partnership has served a new sense of possibilities to a university campus. Clearly built with strict budget, the evoking Wohl Centre is bordered by roads on the border of Bar-Ilan’s new North Campus. The USD 500 million campus extension will function as a venue for prestigious academic gatherings, lectures and national and international conferences, and also provide a cultural site both for the university and the neighbours. “We wanted the building to be just outside the campus to reach out to anyone,” said Professor Moshe Kaveh, president of Bar-Ilan University.

It was constructed with the fundraising of Maurice Wohl dedicated to the memory of Vivienne Wohl, who died earlier in 2005. Donor representative and project controller was engineer Moshe Cogan who monitored the project throughout the construction period. Project manager on behalf of the Bar-Ilan University was engineer Jakob Weinberger from Vinko YEFT.

At first impression, it looks to be a weird thing for such an exceptional building. Daniel Libeskind describes the Centre building, “’Voices and Their Echoes’ stands for the focal point, which brings together the two essential components of Bar-Ilan University, the secular and the sacred. Apparent in the form of the Wohl Centre is the interrelation between the dynamics of knowledge and the unifying role of faith.” The 3,600-sq metre structure comprises a multi-function foyer, three 200-seat lecture halls and a spacious 900-seat main auditorium, the biggest on the university campus.

The Wohl Center resembles a huge box in the form of a book that is open to the sky, while the auditorium is supported by a spine made of two nearly-rectangular boxes. There are no rest columns holding the structure. The fantastic form of the auditorium, lobbies, seminar rooms and pubic spaces are entered by the “labyrinth of letters” in which an ancient configuration of hierarchies is made visible. The functional volumes of program and the elusive unexplained of light are carefully arranged to improve a full actively space and meditative atmosphere.

Inside the building is an intentionally sculpture resembles a valley with atypical forms and without parallel walls. “It is part of the functional disposition of spaces and angles in this particular space vis-à-vis the stage to give an intimacy to all visitors listening to a speaker or to a performance, even if the hall is not completely full,” Mr Libeskind explained at the press conference. The visitor enters an inviting lobby which can subdivide into two separate areas and be attached to another seminar rooms. The lobby, which in all its perspectives is considered as the core of the building, also acts as a unity to provide a dining and reception area for public functions.

To solve the acoustic requirements of performances varying from lectures to symphonic concerts, lead acoustician Abraham Melzer proposed using a system of variable room acoustics. Traditional systems provide differing acoustic requirements by changing the position of moving panels, or by opening or closing reverberant acoustic spaces around an auditorium. These solutions were not preferred because of their cost. Instead, the Variable Room Acoustics System from Level Control Systems was chosen. For architects this gives more freedom design without sacrificing good acoustics. In addition to the variable acoustics in the auditorium, the Wohl Centre provides flexible A/V facilities in all of its halls.

The entire building offers as a dynamic ensemble which through its flexibility of usage can function equally intensive either during the day or the night. The building’s exterior is similar in form, majorly clad in sleek golden aluminium sheets, penetrated by projections of a labyrinth of letters and branded as Libeskind’s style. The building rises on a vital crossroad in the campus and opens an urban interaction between the university and its neighbors. In other word, ‘Voices and its Echoes’ is a bridge and beacon for the students, faculty, guests and public of today society.

Founded 50 years ago, Bar-Ilan University is the largest and fastest-growing faculty in Israel. The Wohl Centre is one of 16 buildings to be completed on the North Campus development campaign between 2000 and 2005.

[Show as slideshow]