Tel Aviv

Posted: March 22nd, 2010 | Author: Gergana Milusheva | Filed under: trips and notes | No Comments »

you did not think that my list of Israeli architectural highlights was complete with Yad Vashem, the Calatrava bridge and the memorial in the kibbutz, right?! it is true that it was a short list to begin with but we still managed to check almost all of it out… and following is our visit to the remaining spots on this very list

the title of this post is, actually, quite inaccurate since Tel Aviv itself is a small administrative territory and the surrounding neighborhoods are called cities, no matter that in terms of size, it is like comparing Drujba to the center of Sofia; there are quite a few skyscrapers built in the center and the Jews do not miss a chance to tell you that the city is a “Little Manhattan… and even better-looking”.

which is not to say that you have a good chance to explore it unless you have a spare day to spend walking around since the traffic jams are absurd, there is no parking space available and public transportation is, put mildly, at an inception stage (a subway can only be a dream here!); a view of Tel Aviv from the neighborhood/city of Jaffa)

the shoreline is not used as a beach but there were surfers

Jaffa is the old town situated to the south of Tel Aviv, along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea; it has a characteristic atmosphere about it and after being a popular spot for suspicious individuals, it is now a renovated place inhabited by artists and a home to many galleries

narrow streets, antique houses and something green here and there in the form of palm trees

Tel Aviv shot in motion

many of the newly built towers are apartment buildings due to the widespread fashion of living in a loft with an empore… hmmm… on the 45-th floor in the center of Tel Aviv

besides the “Little Manhattan” definition, everybody wanted to inform me that the city hosted the tallest skyscraper in the Near East… but they were unable to show it to me ☺ the skyscraper architecture could not impress me much, so we moved on according to our plan

to the Design Museum, Holon

we arrive there in the day following its opening (even our kind hosts knew nothing about it, so they had to check online and they were really surprised I was right it existed)

we move towards the entrance with conviction, following this roofed mini-amphitheater

the ticket is a cute, tiny sticker:

the inside open space in front of the entrance

on to the small hall

the railing

the exhibition is dedicated entirely to contemporary design and it includes curiosity-inspiring models such as this one

and this amicable individual (take a careful look at it…)

the way to the second hall passes through a supple ramp around the open entrance space

and that way we get the opportunity to enjoy the sight of the curvy pergola

the second hall gets much closer to my rational understanding of museum space – clean, white, ceiling lighting and unobtrusive environment

I make use of the second lens on the way out in order to justify taking it along

pergola for pergola’s sake

but it is still a design museum, making the colossal amount of steel lifted randomly in the air a bit more justified; just try to make a similar one in Bulgaria!

a pitiful attempt of illustrating the shape formation process ☺

(Ron Arad)

and we continue to the next destination on the list

Peace Peres House

the place chosen for this turned out to be amazing

the building is the bulk on the left hand side of the picture but the open square with the wood flooring is no less impressive

but the story of the building is a sad one

Peace Peres Center is a Shimon Peres initiative (you have heard the name and I will just add that in 1994 he got the Noble Peace Price together with Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin) for the socio-economic unity, the cross-cultural dialogue and, as the name suggests, peace in the Near East.

the author of the project is