The Jerusalem Seminar in Architecture (JSA), which was initiated in 1992 by Lord Rothschild and Yad Hanadiv (The Rothschild Foundation in Israel), is an international conference series devoted to presenting and discussing contemporary topics in the fields of Architecture, Urban Planning and Design, and creating a broad basis for further projects and research.

The JSA conferences, each with the participation of some 1,500 professionals, researchers in academia, students and the public, offer the international architectural community a forum for dialog and exchange of both theoretical and practical ideas. Each conference showcases a specific thematic discussion which reflects the needs and trends of the architectural world, and hosts a group of leading internationally known architects, designers, planers, engineers and theoreticians. These internationally renowned experts present relevant case studies from their work as well as new ways of thinking.

An important feature of the seminar is a competition for Israeli architecture and design students, which reflects on the conference's theme, and enables an interactive dialog with the conference participators in special master class sessions.

To provide continuity of the professional and academic dialogue, the seminar established an architecture and design film library, as well as an archive of photographs and transcripts of past conferences.