Avraham Yaski and Moshe Zur's battle over the design for Tel Aviv's Kikar Hamedina is now heading to the courts. The landowner's general meeting on the eve of the Jewish New Year, which was due to select architect’s plans for the square, broke up without a decision.
Yaski and landowner's board member Motti Orbach, a developer who is employing Yaski for another project, claim that the proper reading of the Urban Building Plan requires the construction of six residential high-rises on the square, as per Yaski's design. The two men are represented by Adv. Yuval Galon.
Tel Aviv municipal engineer Danny Kaizer, who wrote the Urban Building Plan for Kikar Medina, rejects this interpretation. Zur, who prepared a plan of three high-rises, obtained a legal opinion from Adv. Amnon Evron that contradicts Yaski and Galon's.
Six architects reached the final selection stage in the architectural competition: Yaski & Partners, Moshe Zur Architects and Plan Builders, Giora Rothman and Moshe Raz, Jean Nouvel of France, Kolker-Diamond and Man-Shen’ar. Yaski, Zur and Rothman-Raz reached the final stage.
Yaski won the support of the landowners board, while Zur is backed by Kaizer. Rothman-Raz's design was rejected, and the board recommended the landowners general meeting decide between Yaski and Zur's designs.
A ''Globes'' investigation found that the Rothman-Raz design was the best architecturally, both in terms of its commercial parameters and the landowners' interests as defined by the landowners' experts, and in terms of the environmental and public interest.
Published by Globes [online] - www.globes.co.il - on October 7, 2002