About the project
The Museum on the Seam was established in 1999 but was previously known as the Tourjeman Post Museum, which was established in 1983 at the initiative of then Mayor Teddy Kollek and Georg von Holtzbrinck to depict the story of Jerusalem’s division (1948-1967) and post-1967 reunification. Since the museums’ inception it has been supported by the von Holtzbrinck family of Germany, through the Jerusalem Foundation. The Tourjeman Post Museum was created in Tourjeman House, which was built in the early 1930s and in 1948 became the last house on the Jordanian border near the Mandlebaum Gate (the only crossing between the two sections of the city) and served as an Israeli army post. The Jerusalem Foundation supported conversion of the house for museum use (while retaining many of its scars for interpretive purposes), development of its permanent exhibitions and educational programs for children, city tours and publications. In 1999, Raphie Etgar developed the museum to a prestigious contemporary art gallery dedicated to coexistence. One of its more well-known projects was the Coexistence Exhibition, a traveling exhibition of large-scale posters on the theme of coexistence that was installed in outdoor locations in 35 major cities around the world between 2001 and 2008.
