The Neighborhood

To design a one-of-a-kind hotel, it can take a while to assemble the right group of innovators – especially when they live 500 years apart. The foundations for our unique hotel were laid in Ottoman times when, stone by massive stone, the city's magnificent walls and Jaffa Gate were built. It took several more generations until a bustling neighborhood began to flourish, outside these famous fortifications. To this day, locals know it as Mamilla. Enter one of Israel's most esteemed architects, Moshe Safdie. Seeking the ideal location to weave the capital's colorful threads together, he chose Mamilla, where the timeless beauty of the ancient city meets the excitement of today's Jerusalem. The Mamilla Hotel is the cornerstone of this grand architectural vision, uniting Old City and new. Renowned designer Pierro Lissoni was invited to create one-of-a-kind rooms and interiors, echoing the magnificent architecture of classical Jerusalem, and the best of the capitol's new materials and energy. Like the city itself, the architecture of the Mamilla brings together styles and centuries, resulting in a designer hotel like no other.

Mamilla Hotel is proud to be a cultural platform for promising Israeli artists from various fields. A wide range of original works are presented and harmonized with the design of the hotel, which is modern but has an affinity to the historic past and hypnotic beauty of Jerusalem. Design Curator: Yael Amir-Sternberg, an interior designer and architect, is a graduate of the Seattle-Washington Center of Art. Yael is the Design Director of the Mamilla Hotel, responsible for all the hotel design layout and look throughout the years festivities. Her great deal of talent and artisic taste for the hotels revolving exhibitions create an interesting artistic mix in the hotel foyer showcases, where every corner is a design mosaic. "Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life"-Pablo Picasso

The Mamilla neighborhood, built in the 19th century outside the walls of the Old City and adjacent to the Jaffa Gate, is a natural and vital bridge connecting Jerusalem of old and new and is of great significance to Jerusalem history. Mamilla dates back in Jerusalem history to the site of a water reservoir built by King Herod during the Second Temple period (1st century BCE), and a Mameluke cemetery from the Crusaders era. The area made its first appearance in modern history in the 19th century when it became one of the earliest commercial districts outside the Old City during the Ottoman Empire. When the father of Zionism, Theodore Herzl, visited Jerusalem in 1898, he stayed in the Stern House, one of Mamilla's original structures, which has been rebuilt and incorporated into Alrov Mamilla Avenue. From the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 until the 1967 Six Day War, Mamilla was at the frontline of hostilities between Israel and Jordan. Many of its buildings, including the magnificent Notre Dame de France monastery, were destroyed or badly damaged and a concrete wall bisected the neighborhood, separating the warring sides. Plans for redevelopment of Mamilla were drawn up after the Six Day War, but little progress was achieved until Alrov joined the development project in 1994.