Architects Guy Miloslavsky and Amnon Swartz have been laboring over the past year on plans for the tallest building in Israel. The 100-floor multifunctional Bein Arim Tower would be located on the adjacent borders of the Tel Aviv-Givatayim-Ramat Gan cities, in the company of many other — though somewhat shorter — buildings. In the past decade this entire area in central Israel has become a real skyscraper hub. More generally, close to 800 buildings across Israel contain 20 floors or more.

In the 1960s and 1970s, everyone in Tel Aviv knew exactly where the Shalom Meir Tower was located. It was the only skyscraper in town, or even in Israel. The 31-floor building served as an urban monument in the cognitive map of the city’s residents. Whatever laid south of the tower was considered Tel Aviv outskirts; whatever laid north of it was already uptown. In stark contrast to the Shalom Meir Tower, Bauhaus-style architectural gems dominated Tel Aviv’s older neighborhoods. These were four- or five-story buildings characterized by elegant horizontal lines, with narrow balconies running along each floor. Tel Aviv’s skyline was low and continuous, except the Shalom Meir Tower.

Nowadays as well, most office and commercial tall buildings are located at the Tel Aviv and its environs’ central business districts. Yet another phenomenon is gaining momentum — that of condominium towers. The keyword is vertical, instead of horizontal. What started as tall residential buildings for the rich has recently become also a middle-class fashion.

In 2002, the Tel Aviv planning committee approved the north Tel Aviv Park Tzameret project, set to contain 12 luxurious tall apartment buildings between 29 and 40 floors, surrounded by green space. The towers were designed to contain some 1,500 apartments in all sizes from studio to 360-square meter (3,875-square feet) flats, as well as commerce and public services. The city was confronted by much criticism, over the construction of an all-luxurious neighborhood, practically inaccessible to the other city residents and in urban disconnect with other parts of Tel Aviv.