Du(b)alities
There is a new type of 21st century urbanism emerging. It is about algorithms, the beach, as clusters, with some density, as districts, with facades, like objects, a variety of rooftops, with routes, streets and unique towers.
posted Jul 27, 03:36 am, Read more... Comment
Dubai’s Potemkin City [part3]
Latest images (June 2007): Asia-Asia Hotel at Bawadi, Dubai.
posted Jul 25, 11:38 pm, Read more... Comment
Studio Research and Urban Mappings
Rather than falling into the trap of seeing the city from an idealistic or romantic perspective, the work aims at exposing the entrails of architecture, at discovering unique and invisible opportunities. Patterns of behaviour are transformed into urban organizational structures that negotiate, and adapt to, the forever-changing demands and multiple realities of the city.
posted Aug 14, 09:24 pm, Read more... Comment
Some aerial photographs of Dubai
In the last twenty years, Dubai has developed at a remarkable pace to cosmopolitan global crossroad. Born of determination and imagination in the beautiful yet inhospitable desert, the urban mirage continues to unfurl dynamically into the future.
posted Aug 13, 09:16 pm, Read more... Comment
Dubai’s Potemkin City [part2]
Following the popularity of the images published in Dubai’s Potemkin City, some more images from Dubai’s new billboard city, anticipating the construction of the largest hotel (5,044 rooms) in the world.
posted Aug 13, 07:50 pm, Read more... Comment
Constructed Fantasy
Dubai’s current condition is an accelerated form of urbanism, consumable, spectacular, diagrammatic, telegenic (as opposed to photogenic), an escapism from the daily banality, a constructed leisure-land, exaggerated familiarity and constructed by Photoshop and other digital media as an iconography of over-dramatization. As such, this is a unique urban condition. A surrealist machine of self-stylization and fantasy, Dubai is both an experiment and a success.
posted Aug 7, 07:45 pm, Read more... Comment
Dubai’s Manhattanism
The current ambition of Dubai is to build its own monumental skyline in a new high-rise hysteria. This corresponds to the photogenic (camera-friendly) and telegenic (satellite-friendly) images of the city’s mega-projects.
posted Aug 2, 04:33 am, Read more... Comment
Dubai’s Satellite Urbanism
Dubai is turning into a postcard portrait city of the future. Satellite imagery of unfinished projects gives rise to the exciting promise of fantasy.
posted Aug 2, 04:17 am, Read more... Comment
Dubai's Urbanism by numbers
Dubailand’s replica of the Eiffel Tower will be 70 feet taller than the original and the replica of Taj Mahal 150 percent bigger than the original.
posted Aug 2, 03:44 am, Read more... Comment
Constructed Leisure-land
The modern tourist resort is by definition a constructed one. The tourist’s perception seems to have shifted away from the pictorial 18th century: there is no longer the desire for the panoramic view. The excessively visual contemporary culture has made everything look familiar. Contemporary tourists are looking for familiarity: they want to feel at home in a strange place.
posted Aug 1, 04:49 am, Read more... Comment