Shortlisted for Museum To Honor Jesus Christ's Baptism At Bethany, Jordan

August 2025

Níall McLaughlin Architects is 1 of 7 practices shortlisted for the Malcolm Reading Consultants managed competition. Due to open in 2030 to mark the bimillennial of Christ’s baptism, the new museum is expected to be a globally significant spiritual and cultural landmark. The project is endorsed by His Majesty King Abdullah II bin Al-Hussein of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and is led by the Foundation for the Development of the Lands Adjacent to the Baptism Site (the Foundation).

Dr Tharwat Al Masalha, Chair of the Jordan Foundation’s Board, said:

‘This project is one of the most significant cultural commissions in Jordan’s recent history. It reflects a national ambition to enrich the experience of visiting the Baptism Site for pilgrims, scholars, visitors and tourists alike.

‘The museum will honor the site’s spiritual value and importance, while also expressing Jordan’s enduring history as part of the Holy Land and its commitment to peace and plurality.

‘Confirming the shortlist brings us closer to creating a museum at one of the most sacred and spiritually resonant sites in the region.

‘We congratulate the finalist teams and look forward to seeing their design concepts in the Fall.’

More information is available on the Malcolm Reading website here.

The Welcome Building

September 2017

The Welcome Building in Bishop Auckland consists of a new viewing tower and central ticketing hall for the The Auckland Project. It acts as an access point and gateway to the wider site whilst also giving views over the town and landscape setting. The tower – a timber framed structure – is now well under way on site.

The building team has worked tirelessly and with the highest level of precision, to build the in-situ concrete lift shaft. Working from the ground up seemed to take an age.

Meanwhile, the enormous larch glulam beams have been carefully crafted and manually grey-oiled in the joiner’s workshop.

The frames are now being lifted into position on site and suddenly the building can be seen. Almost in an instant. As if the past four years had happened in the blink of an eye.

We are so excited and proud – even – to see this fantasy project becoming real at last. But with completion on the horizon, time seems to now move all too fast.