Buildings from the inside

We took a pleasant diversion from trying to figure out the significance of Obama's speech (and Netanyahu's response) by means of Batim MiBifnim (Buildings from Within), the annual two day event in which scores of public buildings, studios, businesses and private apartments throw open their doors to thousands of the curious - us included. We arrived at a project on a rooftop in Florentin where a group of artists had put together a creation built of wood scrap and other discarded junk. Not exactly a completed building, more an exercise in creative recycling.

Inside one of the newly created rooms a candelabra made out of upturned salt shakers.

In an old flower mill turned into a design studio we found another creative use for an ordinary household object.

Later, on Rothschild, I noticed that someone had knitted some socks onto the feet of Dizengoff's horse.

On Rabin Square, Tel Aviv's equivalent of Cairo's Tahrir, the newly renovated 'ecological pool' (water lillies, fountain, goldfish and all) revealed what had been hidden from the public and the public seemed to be lapping it up.

The Middle East is in turmoil, Obama and Netanyahu trade speeches in New York on the outlines of a Palestinian state but here on a warm Saturday morning in Tel Aviv all seemed tranquil.

Tonight there was a demonstration outside the US embassy though - perhaps the beginning of less tranquil times ahead?