Rising from a series of limestone terraces above a scrubby valley of olive trees, this metallic box is the new $21m (£15.95m) home for the AM Qattan Foundation, an arts centre that its founders hope will stand as a “beacon of culture” in the occupied West Bank. “It is more than just an arts centre,” says Omar Al-Qattan, the Beirut-born, British-educated chairman of the foundation. “We hope it might be a modest microcosm of urban public life, something that Palestinian cities lack.”