NDLR

Delirious Tel-Aviv
Victor Enrich


"The Opera Tower, a magnificent example built 20 years ago, at the confluence of the Tayelet and Allenby Street. An enclave, today, slightly degraded by the existence of very low class hotels and business of little interest. The building is imposing even more to his area because of the existence of a large car park on the north side that allows for spectacular views like the one shown here. Looking closely at the building one evening, I realized that playing mildly to its original form it could get a way to denote one of the most present aspects in the country of Israel. Is none other than its militarization. In all parts of the country you can see young soldiers, dressed in their characteristic green uniform. The country requires them to 3 years of military service, if you are male, and 2 if you are female. And the vast majority of young people run it in the years leading up to college, delaying the access to their studies. However, there are young people who choose to delay their military service after college but this option is not usually welcomed by the vast majority, who defines its passage by the army as the best years of their lifes. However, such militarization, tends to be a forgotten concept in the city of Tel Aviv, who apparently lives outside what’s happening a few miles away. It is known as the Tel Aviv bubble, where everything is wonderful and ideal. It is worth to remind people of this wonderful city, that the conflict is still alive and that it is exactly in Tel Aviv where some of the most controversial decisions are taken."
"This is the Shalom Tower, probably the most famous building in the city for many reasons. It was the first, and for many years, the tallest skyscraper in the whole country of Israel. The style used is essentially Tel Avivi by the appearance of prefabricated artificial stone panels that, from the distance, look like concrete. I love this buildings for several reasons. First because of his magnitude, with more than 35 floors, second, because of it’s shape, with a 5 floors socket on the bottom that functions as a bridge building letting pass the Hertzl st through it, and finished with a very simple prismatic tower. On the top of the tower, we find a very interesting finishing with a new combination of holes and solids that manifest as setbacks reducing in a progressive way the width of the building. In any case, this finishing was not original but added several years after the original project was built. On the sides we find a vertical strip of windows that honestly, for me, look like the zip that I always wanted to tear down in order to see what’s hidden inside."

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