On driving in Dubai for the first time, there is an
inescapable feeling that this is Birmingham. Those developments masterminded by
Herbert Manzoni, not so much the ‘Concrete Collar’ but the spine roads that run
through reconstructed areas of city, like the Walsall Road for example, a road
that is dominated by flyovers, underpasses and traffic islands. Here in Dubai
it is as though the Walsall Road has been super sized ten to fourteen lanes
wide as opposed to six to ten.
Heading out on to the Palm Jumeira, which looks so elegant when flying into Dubai, from the point of view of the driver, could just as easily be St Elia’s La Cita Nova, Le Corbusier’s La Voisin Plan, or Nechells in Birmingham, identical apartment blocks march alongside both sides of a wide road, completely divorced from each other. Of course the sunshine and Palm Trees planted along the central median, mean that this cannot possibly be Birmingham, but the planning strategies are similar. The main difference is that the wide road is almost deserted, in the centre, above the trees is a monorail, although there do not appear to be any trains running along it.
This not Birmingham, this is the Palm Jumeira, an artificial island formed in the iconic shape of a palm tree when viewed from the air and a symbol of Dubai’s desire to build bigger, better and more exclusive than anywhere else. This being one of three ‘Palms’ built in the sea off the coast of Dubai, the others being a complete palm at Jebel Ali and a third, emerging out of the sea at Deira, close to the Airport, to date this is the only one that has been built on.
The marching blocks cease, the wide road becomes narrower, and glimpses of sea become visible between the smaller apartment blocks and signs point to the fronds that make up the iconic shape as viewed from the air. Up ahead another iconic shape that is the Atlantis resort, a hotel seemingly transplanted from the Bahamas, with a huge Arabic arch spanning between the two triangular wings of hotel. The road dips down into the curving ’Queensway’ tunnel and re-emerges on the Crescent, an inhabited breakwater that protects the private beaches of the fronds. The crescent is another world entirely, lush planting place the hotels in a tropical setting. Groups of tourists, arrive by the coach load to have their photographs taken in front of the Atlantis hotel, behind the photographer, the sea wall and the Persian Gulf.
The full story is available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble published by Xlibris — Do We Need ARCHITECTS?
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