163 The Center for Accessible Culture

Architects: OKA – Orit Willenberg and Keren Jedwab; Landscape architects: The Commons, 2023.

Guided tours at the new Center for Accessible Culture, founded by the Central Library for the Blind – the first and only building of its kind in Israel, which serves as a cultural center for the blind and the visually and reading impaired. It also houses the Central Library for the Blind, which for over 70 years has been working to make written and visual content accessible to the visually impaired.

The building extends across an area of 2,000 m² and includes the library, classrooms and training rooms, offices, one of the most sophisticated recording studios in the world, a convention center, a print shop and a café. It is designed around an inner courtyard which is a public space that is open to the city and welcomes community gatherings. The building will also serve as a center where books, newspapers, films, TV shows, plays, music, and visual art for the blind and the visually impaired can be created, produced and borrowed. There will also be a visitors center that introduces guests to accessibility solutions and to the activities that take place in the building.

The project won the rokach award 2023.

The project’s main partners and supporters are: the National Insurance Institute, the Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality, the Gerald Schwartz & Heather Reisman Foundation, the Maurice and Vivienne Wohl Philanthropic Foundation, and the Clore Israel Foundation.

The project was carried out by Yaniv Engineering. Project management and oversight: David Raz.

The tours will be led by the building’s architects and people representing the center.