Finalist (Heneghan Peng Architects), Jordan International Design Competition

Heneghan Peng Architects was selected as one of seven finalists in an international competition for the Museum of the Baptism of Jesus, planned for the town of Bethany in Jordan.

Heneghan Peng Architects (Ireland)

With Landscape Design – Agence Ter and Lara Zureikat; Exhibition Design – Cookies; Engineering – Arup; and Lighting Consultant – Kardorff.

To preserve the two-thousand-year-old spirituality of Al-Maghtas, the museum immerses itself within geology and bonds with the stratigraphy of its site. It resists the temptation to rely on metaphor or storytelling and listens carefully to the whispers embedded within its land.

Though the river no longer flows as it once did, its presence endures – not only in memory, but in the land itself. The soil becomes the witness and bearer of that sacred history, retaining the imprint of water long receded. As the land subtly depresses near the museum edge it forms a tributary gesture carved by time now reimagined.

Along the tributary, water is not always seen, but always possible. When it comes, it moves freely through this line depression – an image of spiritual and ecological renewal. It allows the land to speak of what it once carried, and what it still might hold again.