The skyline of Tel Aviv, like the skyline of Jerusalem and other cities in the country, changes from month to month. The rate of construction of residential and commercial skyscrapers is very high. I have already expressed my love of the beauty of the tall yellow cranes used in skyscraper construction (Please click here). These cranes are visible for about a year until they are hidden by the skyscrapers. In this post I will focus on the aesthetic side of the buildings themselves and their surroundings.
Most of the Tel Aviv skyscrapers are beautiful as individuals. Some are even architectural masterpieces. In the early stage of the appearance of skyscrapers as part of the urban skyline, they are very visible and it is easy to see their beauty. This is so as long as the older lower buildings form most of the skyline. Traveling by car on the coastal road or on the Ayalon road toward Tel Aviv was a delightful visual experience until around 2015. The skyline included skyscrapers in the diamond stock exchange neighborhood of Ramat Gan and around the Azrieli Towers and Yigal Allon Road.
Since then, the entire area between the stock exchange and the Hashalom road was filled with additional towers and skyscrapers, resulting in a monotonous skyline. It is difficult to distinguish between the architectural styles of the buildings and they also hide each other. The interesting contrast between small and high as well as and old and new has disappeared. The skyline from a distant view of Tel Aviv has deteriorated.
However, the architectural features of a city is not designed for the highway drivers. A new and charming beauty is created when you view the landscape from a short distance inside the city, from a street or a boulevard. Once you enter the city, the beauty of every building is revealed, and again the contrast between old and new is highlighted. Urban beauty is actually enhanced. Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and many other cities look more beautiful, alive and optimistic than ever. What really counts is what you see and how you feel inside the city rather than from your car ten kilometers away from the city.
In this post, I try to show some of the beauty of high-rise construction in Tel Aviv alongside the old low-rise buildings, using digital free hand painting on my smart phone screen. I hope you will join me in the love of high-rise construction while preserving the older ones.