Ramat - Gan Museums Center: A Proposal

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Preface:

The City of Ramat-Gan was created as a garden sleeping suburb of Tel Aviv.

It is actually quite difficult to understand the logic of its being a separate city-there is not even a discernable borderline between the two. One must admit that today is true for Givataim or even Bat-Yam. It is not really surprising that merging Bat Yam into Tel Aviv has been such hot topic.
From a planning point of view merging Ramat-Gan into Tel Aviv ( or at very least merging Ramat-Gan and Givataim) makes more sense however Bat Yam is in a lousy shape financially and therefore the need.

The former mayor of Ramat –Gan for some 25 years-Mr. Zvi Bar is a sophisticated consumer of culture personally however he was under the opinion that Tel Aviv provides all the cultural needs of Ramat –Gan and there is no real need to provide additional cultural institutions in Ramat-Gan.

One cannot totally fault this approach however it does deprive the city the opportunity to utilize the assets it does own and loses  a major tool to create within its residents a real sense of pride in their city.

Ramat-Gan has “so called” city museums which comprise of an unimportant Israeli Art museum and two collections: Far East objet des arts and a  collection of Russian paintings which are located in three different locations.There was no real effort to develop these institutions. 

Strategy:

Utilize the existing assets in which you have advantages and create a “museum mile” which will utilize The Yarkon River as a source of visitors and direct connection to the area of the Tel Aviv port.

More importantly it will serve as the cultural foundation of the major development planned for the “national stadium” (another unneeded relic).

The stadium however should not be demolished but rather roofed and thus create an architectural monument to complement the museum mile as cultural tool of the planned development.

Museums:

In order to create a real effective group of museums –one has to utilize the unique assets and not go to me too projects.

It is therefore suggested to create the following museums existing side by side along Hayrkon river:
 

1.Fine arts and design:  (New building)
 

Russian art, Far East objet des arts, art deco (a collection was identified) and Israeli art.
A fifth gallery will be used for changing exhibitions.
 

2. Modern Israeli history-shikun havetikim museum:
 

The existing art museum is located across the street from “shikun havetikim“ neighborhood. It just so happens that many of the founding fathers of Israeli journalism, Israeli police, artists, politicians from all sorts of life lived there. As a group their lives present a fascinating reading of modern Israeli history and the creation of the country.

We have compiled  the list of these people and their role in the making of the country and drew the outline for a new museum.
 

3. Khana House Gallery and coffee shop.

Khana was one of the a/m artists and left this gem of a building to the city. 

4. Israeli Fashion museum. (New building)

This last one will be based on the collection of Shenkar College–a Ramat-Gan college for engineering, art and fashion.

This entire concept will have "put " Ramat-Gan on "the map" as a popular Israeli saying goes in cultural and economic terms; will enable it to better utilize some of Tel Aviv assets to its own benefit

-instead of the other way- and increase considerably the value of the area around the project.

Unfortunately the city has decided to proceed exactly on the opposite path and consequently sold its most important painting (a cultural crime by itself) to finance a renovation of its failing and unneeded Israeli art gallery. 

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