The Divided Utopia of Neve Shaanan | Performance | 2007 | 30 min.

During this video-performance we are investigating an urban phenomenon of the City of Tel Aviv: the New Central Bus station.

This gigantic concrete building is not only the world's biggest bus station, but it is also well known as an example for disastrous architecture. Planned by ambitious architect Ram Karmi and financed through the tough business practices of Arie Pilz this megalomaniac enterprise destroyed an entire neighborhood and turned it into the dark back yard of Tel Aviv.

The New Central Bus station not only reflects a failure in urban planning, but stands for a clash between two narratives among the various communities of Israel's society: the "white city" against the "black city", the Western European against the Eastern Oriental self perception.

The area destructed by the bus station's brutalism was an oriental neighborhood in the development of its own urban characteristic, especially in building the course of the streets in the shape of a "Menora", the seven branched candelabrum used in the Jewish temple.The completion of the New Central bus station flags the enforcement of the Western narrative in Tel Aviv, marginalizing cultural and economical at the same time its Eastern-oriental part.

As it turned out a Pyrus victory. Still the bus station didn’t become the flourishing center as its planners thought it should be. Once again neglected by the establishment this place followed its own path. The surroundings of the bus station became the center for the marginalized people of the city, homeless, drug addicts and day laborer. At the same time its interior became the heart of daily life and cultural center of the heterogeneous community of migrant workers.

Reading: Neta Hagiladi
Sound Mix: Rafi Chen