It is our last morning of our whistle stop visit to Dubai, and it is off to sample some more of the city’s delights with a friend who lives in the City, and hearing the stories of how crazy everything was getting before the bubble burst, it was like La-La-land she tells us, I have no idea where La-La-land is...Hollywood, dream state, out of touch with reality perhaps, either way I think the term sums it up beautifully.
It seems that everything to do in Dubai involves going to a mall, in this case the Dubai Mall, I would say slightly more upmarket than the Mall of the Emirates, in fact probably as upmarket as it gets, here the same designer shops are accommodated in a more sophisticated, designed environment, an environment of exquisite minimalism that complements the exhibits in the shops. In the middle of a huge drum-like space stands a model of one of Dubai’s next mega projects, ‘The Dubai Pearl’ a cluster of tacky ornamented towers centred around what resembles a huge glass cube, 70 storeys high with 6 towers combined together by a 3 storey deck at the top that links all 6. All have planted roofs and are sitting in a lush landscape inside a circular 10 lane highway...
Heading away this vision of the future, it is time to sit outside a coffee shop and enjoy a late breakfast in an environment that is so new that it is still in a state of frantic activity. The centrepiece is the tower that I said resembled Frank Lloyd Wright’s Mile high tower proposal for Chicago when viewed from a distance, in fact it is only half the height, but at 830m, 163 floors is still the world’s tallest building, designed by Chicago Architects SOM, the tower that we all now know as the Burj Khalifa. A walk along the base reveals that work is still very much underway...stainless steel and planar glass viewed across a silver stone plaza with newly transplanted palm trees behind a flimsy barrier of traffic cones and red and white tape fluttering in the breeze. I had heard that if you book far enough in advance that there are guided tours to the observation deck, think I’ll wait until it is open.
Looking up towards the spire with the sun glinting off the silver facade I cannot help but be awed by the sheer scale of what is being undertaken here. Panning round the base two towers at Boulevard Plaza that are familiar from the Aedas portfolio are nearing completion. The Khalifa lake with the Dubai Fountain, resembling the Las Vegas Bellagio fountain from the ‘on a day like today’ video from the flight in now stands dormant. The lake front is lined by arabesque low rise blocks whist the glass towers of downtown Dubai that could have been transplanted from New York, Chicago, Hong Kong... form the backdrop to make this a truly spectacular if not surreal setting.
Stepping back inside the mall to see a fish tank, not just any fish tank, the Dubai Aquarium is the largest acrylic fish tank in the world 20 metres high, 48 metres long, teeming with life, sharks and rays swim among shoals of a whole variety of species and two scuba divers!
The final stop is at Burj al Arab, well, not exactly at the Burj Al Arab, because nobody is allowed onto the island without a booking, so it is a case of standing by the barrier to the causeway having tourist photos taken with the tower in the background, a golf buggy appears from across the causeway to drop off guests at the gatehouse, Tom Wright’s elegant white tower said to based on the sail of a Dhow stands serenely against a what has become a deep blue sky, framed by date palms and a stop sign. Alas the experience of crossing the causeway is one that will have to wait until another day.
Having spent a day and a half in the city, I am impressed by what has been achieved, even though I cannot understand the craziness that has resulted in its current state, the race to be bigger and better than anywhere else has driven our techical abilities to extremes to essentially create something out of nothing. I mean who had heard of Dubai twenty years ago? other than potentially a transfer point on long haul flights, now like it or not it is a global destination with it’s culture derived from glossy magazines, designer brands and a sense of keeping up with the Jones’s taken to extreme.
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