The Central Bus Station of Beersheba

The story

The central bus station of Beersheba is the central bus terminal of the city and of the south of Israel, and it is located on David Hacham Boulevard, in the southern part of the Civic Center. Already in the master plan of 1950 an area was allotted for a central station with a railway station beside it, and in the meantime the intercity bus lines left from a single platform on Ha-Histadrut Street in the Old City. In January 1960 agreement was reached on the establishment of the station, and in 1962 it was decided upon a dedicated building that would serve as a center for public transport. The construction began in the middle of 1964 and the station was dedicated in 1968. The building was designed by Nahum Shani, Avraham Yaski and Amnon Alexandroni; it was put up in exposed concrete in the Brutalist style, extended over four thousand square meters and included sixteen open intercity platforms and beside them a commerce and catering complex. After the Six-Day War two further platforms were dedicated, one for Gaza and the other for Hebron. In 2009 it was decided to renovate the existing building, which was completed in 2013; since then the station is called “Beersheba Terminal” and it extends over ten thousand square meters. Close to the time of the start of the new construction the Israel Antiquities Authority carried out a salvage excavation at the place and uncovered the remains of a Byzantine city of the fifth and sixth centuries, which extend over an area far larger than that of the station. At the entrance to the building a transparent, tempered glass floor was placed, about nine square meters, which allows passers-by to look at the antiquities from above.

• Brutalism
• Byzantine
• Archaeology
• Beersheba