Batel Madmon

Hidden Garden

The ordinary practitioners of the city live ‘down below’, below the thresholds at which visibility begins. They walk - an elementary form of this experience of the city: they are walkers, Wandersmänner, whose bodies follow the thicks and thins of an urban 'text' they write without being able to read it. The walker, through her/his everyday practices of life, resists the organizing power of both the gaze and the map. The city is produced every day, inscribed with her/his journeys, journeys that create the city but 'elud[e] legibility. "Michel de Certeau, "The Practice of Everyday Life" (1984) The area that unites Clal Center, Abraham Hostel and Davidka Square galvanizes Jaffa Street's inherited intensity, as it draws into it the city's main traffic route, plaza, abandoned structures and empty lots that add to its dynamic quality in the heart of the city. This project offers a new reading of the city by dividing it to three horizontal segments. Each segment consists of various gardens, through which one can experience the metropolis in multiple ways. The first segment emphasizes the activity of walking in the city, while the plazas and the gardens enable pedestrians to congregate and meet, making these the city's spacious and calm areas. The gardens in the second segment look directly at certain areas of the city, while every few floors these gardens are accessible to the community. In the third segment, we experience the city from above, and are completely detached from the activities on the ground. The sky is exposed to us through the gardens, and thus enhances the feeling of isolation