Visiting The Wonder Cabinet in Bethlehem

The Wonder Cabinet in Bethlehem by AAU Anastas — (Image credit: Mikaela Burstow)

The Wonder Cabinet in Bethlehem, Palestine, has just launched, fostering creativity and cultural production in its region. The building, a piece of brutalist architecture in raw concrete, was designed by AAU Anastas, a practice headed creatively by architects Elias and Yousef Anastas. The structure, which is now operation, aims to become a key hub for craft, design and innovation.

Inside The Wonder Cabinet

The Wonder Cabinet's flexible, open spaces are home to the Anastas' own architecture practice, as well as Radio Alhara, a restaurant, a small store, a showroom for Local Industries (the product design studio founded in 2011 by Elias and Yousef Anastas) and a small cinema.

The project, which overlooks a residential area in the Karkafeh valley, was conceived as a 'non-profit and production-driven cultural space. Experimental in nature, it is committed to prioritizing artisanship and physical crafting principles as essential tools of art making. Through its programmes, the Wonder Cabinet brings together art, artisanship, research and education, with an intuitive approach built on knowledge exchange and cooperative labour', says Anastas.

A series of stainless steel letters spelling 'W-O-N-D-E-R C-A-B-I-N-E-T' spins above the main façade. It acts as signage as well as a weather vane, while smartly flagging the building as a beacon for creativity. Upon approach, the building's rough concrete grid and metal detailing made by Local Industries highlight its design-led approach.

Inside, three levels of work and production spaces connect through voids and internal balconies. Meanwhile, a a 'street esplanade' is used for ephemeral set-ups between the various studio spaces.

'The wonder cabinet opening is first and foremost an invitation to explore the building and its surroundings through sound, discussions, objects, experimentations, food and the encountering of disciplines with each other. The opening days are a three day condensed version of what the wonder cabinet is about to unfold into,' Anastas writes.

desk with stationary in the Wonder Cabinet in Bethlehem

aauanastas.com

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Ellie Stathaki is the Architecture & Environment Director at Wallpaper*. She trained as an architect at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece and studied architectural history at the Bartlett in London. Now an established journalist, she has been a member of the Wallpaper* team since 2006, visiting buildings across the globe and interviewing leading architects such as Tadao Ando and Rem Koolhaas. Ellie has also taken part in judging panels, moderated events, curated shows and contributed in books, such as The Contemporary House (Thames & Hudson, 2018), Glenn Sestig Architecture Diary (2020) and House London (2022).