Top Haifa Museums – Six Museums in One Frame

By Petal Mashraki | Published on 10/8/2018

The Haifa municipality operates six museums under the name “Six Museums in One Frame.” These are the most important and some of the most interesting museums in the city.

Haifa Museum of Art

Haifa Museum of Art

The museum’s permanent collection includes over 7,500 works of art by both local and international artists. The work represents a wide variety of artistic movements and phases in art history. Among the collection are, works on paper by Marc Chagall, Odilon Redon, Andre Masson and Chana Orloff. There are also works of digital media art and video art from the early era of this genre in the 1960s. The museum is housed in a historical building in Downtown Haifa.

Tikotin Museum of Japanese Art

Tikotin Museum

This museum was established in 1959 and exhibits contemporary and traditional Japanese art. The art forms cover a broad spectrum including martial art objects, Japanese textiles, prints, modern miniatures, illustrated books, lacquer ware, masks, metal work, applied arts, Japanese porcelain, swords, traditional costume, sculptures, calligraphy and paintings. The museum building was designed to include Japanese moving paper-covered doors and a Zen garden. This is the only museum in the Middle East devoted solely to Japanese art and culture. In addition to the permanent collection, the museum holds regular temporary exhibitions like the present exhibition of Cosplay and Kimono. The museum also hosts regular lectures, workshops for children and adults as well as screenings.

The National Maritime Museum

Maritime Museum

This museum holds a number of exhibitions each focused on a different era of seamanship including a section on pirates! The museum highlights the history of shipping in the Mediterranean and Haifa’s marine history. On display are over 5,000 rare artifacts recovered from sunken ships, sub-marine archeology. Other themes include marine mythology, marine art, anchors, coins, nautical instruments, maps, model ships and the Greco-Roman era. This museum is very popular with kids and there are regular children’s activities and workshops. If this subject interests you visit the nearby Clandestine Immigration and Naval Museum.

Haifa City Museum

The Haifa City Museum is housed in a historic house which was the first Templar building in Haifa in what is now the German Colony. Visitors can take a journey back in time to the establishment of Haifa al-Jadida in the 18th century by Sheikh Dahir al-Umar al-Zaydani. Follow the progress of the city as it grew into the modern, cosmopolitan city that it is today. The museum highlights the cultural and historical diversity of Haifa. The themed exhibits focus on the character of the city and its different communities. The permanent exhibition is a chronological timeline of Haifa’s history in three important periods – the Ottoman era, British Mandate and the establishment of the State of Israel.  The museum hosts temporary exhibitions like the present exhibition of historic photographs entitled “Childhood in Haifa from 1930 to 1960.”

Mane-Katz Museum

Mane-Katz Museum

This museum is housed in the former home of artist Mane Katz; an influential figure in the School of Paris art movement which thrived in Paris between the two world wars and included many Eastern to Central European Jewish artists. When Katz immigrated to Israel in 1957 he was already a well-known name in the art world. The city of Haifa provided Katz with a home and in exchange Katz agreed to bequeath his estate and work to the city. Here you can see art on display which shows the connection between traditional Judaism and art. Together with the work by Mane Katz there are exhibits of work by contemporary and modern artists like Chaim Sutine, Jozef Israels, Max Liebermann, Camille Pissarro and Maurycy Gottlieb. The museum also has space for temporary exhibitions and a balcony café overlooking the Haifa Bay.

Hermann Struck Museum

This museum was established in the former home of artist Hermann Struck (1876-1944), a prominent 20th-century German artist who excelled in the field of etchings and printmaking. Struck rose to fame in Germany as part of the modern art movement Berlin Secession. He was commissioned to create portraits of Nietzsche, Ibsen, Freud, Herzl, Einstein and Oscar Wilde among other leading figures. Being a passionate Zionist he signed his art with the Star of David and his Hebrew name (Chaim Aaron ben David). He concentrated on two themes – landscapes and portraits. The museum displays contemporary and temporary exhibitions in the art of printmaking as well as its permanent collection of Struck’s personal artifacts, furniture, books, paintings and prints. On display are prints, silk-screen, woodblock and works in oil. The museum’s valuable permanent collection includes approximately 500 works by Struck and his pupils, among them Max Slevogt, Lovis Corinth and Max Lieberman.

Practical Information:

It is possible to purchase a ticket (60 ILS) which covers all 6 of the Haifa municipal museums allowing you one-time entry to all 6 within a week.

Haifa Museum of Art
Where: 26 Shabbatai Levi Street, Haifa
Admission: 45 ILS
Open Hours: Sun-Wed 10am-4pm; Thurs 10am-7pm; Fri 10am-1pm; Sat 10am-3pm

Tikotin Museum
Where: Kisch House, Hanassi Blvd, Haifa
Admission: 35 ILS
Open Hours: Sat-Thurs 10am-7pm; Fri10am-1pm.

Maritime Museum
Where: 198 Allenby Street, Haifa
Admission: 35 ILS
Open Hours: Sun-Thurs 10am-4pm; Fri 10am-1pm; Sat 10am-3pm

City Museum
Where: 11 Ben Gurion Street, Haifa
Admission: 35 ILS
Open Hours: Sun-Wed 10am-4pm; Thurs 4pm-7pm; Fri 10am-1pm; Sat 10am-3pm

Mane-Katz Museum
Where: 89 Yefe Nof Street, Haifa
Admission: 35 ILS
Open Hours: Sun-Wed 10am-4pm; Thurs 10am-7pm; Fri 10am-1pm; Sat 10am-3pm

Hermann Struck Museum
Where: 23 Arlosoroff Street, Haifa
Admission: 35 ILS
Open Hours: Sun-Wed 10am-4pm; Thurs 10am-7pm; Fri 10am-1pm; Sat closed.