Hansen House was designed by the architect Conrad Schick and built in 1887 by the Protestant community in Jerusalem to serve as an isolation hospital for lepers. In 1950 the house was purchased by KKL-JNF but continued to serve in its original function.
In 2009 the government decided to transfer the building from KKL-JNF to the Jerusalem Municipality for the purpose of its renovation and conversion into use as a center for design, media, and technology.
The planning and conservation works on the site were undertaken
in 2011-2013 under the management of JDA.
After years when the walls of the compound were closed to the public, Hansen House opened again.
The center offers permanent and temporary exhibitions, a historical exhibition telling the story of the building and its residents, a cinema theater, sound laboratory, animation laboratory, fabrication laboratory, and a well-kept garden around the building that has also been preserved and renovated.
The center serves as a base for postgraduate degree courses of Bezalel Academy of Art and Design; an association that organizes activities, encounters, research, and an exhibition in the field of contemporary art; research groups in design and technology; the JDA’s cinema and television project; a café, a farmers’ product store, and other activities.
