http://www.spiegel.de/images/image-40939-galleryV9-jpqw.jpg

The Peak of Megalomania or stunning vision?

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,667262,00.html#ref=nlint

The world's tallest skyscraper will open soon in Dubai, even as the emirate continues to be battered by the financial crisis. Is Burj Dubai an expression of failed megalomania or proof of Dubai leader Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum's stunning vision?

The view is clear, the air is soft and silky, and only a thick strip of red separates the sky and the sea at sundown. The boundary between grandeur and kitsch becomes blurred here, halfway up the Burj Dubai, the world's tallest tower.


It smells of paint, varnish and new leather, and the steps of female visitors on parquet and marble produce an elegant-sounding echo that suddenly disappears when they step onto soft carpets. An artificial island in the shape of a palm tree is visible to the southwest, and farther to the north is a man-made archipelago that looks like a map of the world.

But only the furniture, the carpets, the smells and the sounds are real. The rest is an illusion. The visitor isn't gazing out at the Persian Gulf from 400 meters (1,312 feet) up in the air; in fact, he or she is standing at ground level -- in a model apartment with an enormous mural stretched outside its floor-to-ceiling windows -- at the foot of a hermetically sealed building.

The model apartment is located at the recently closed sales office of Emaar Properties, the real estate development company behind the Burj Dubai, which has over-extended itself -- with projects from India to Morocco -- and is now selling some of its condominiums at half the list price. After falling by 32 percent in last two weeks, Emaar's stock price gained 15 percentage points again last Thursday. Emaar, like the entire city, is on the brink of ruin, and yet it behaves as if nothing has happened.

Dubai, like no other place in the world, epitomizes globalization, "innovation" and "astonishing progress," as US President Barack Obama said admiringly in his speech to the Muslim world in Cairo in June. But it also stands for mind-boggling excess. In Dubai, utopias almost feel real sometimes, and reality is sometimes nothing but a mirage.

http://www.spiegel.de/images/image-40938-galleryV9-onec.jpg

Atlantis Hotel and Palm Island

http://www.spiegel.de/images/image-40932-galleryV9-olct.jpg

http://www.spiegel.de/images/image-41636-galleryV9-qwnq.jpg

The indoor snow park Ski Dubai

As the building went into the final phase of construction this autumn, more than 14,000 people worked on it. An army of immigrant guest workers from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh have helped build today's opulent Dubai. Two-thirds of the emirate's residents are immigrants.

http://www.spiegel.de/images/image-41634-galleryV9-hriw.jpg

I understand all that insanity is slowly sinking into the gulf.

For a moderator you should know:

1. There is already a thread about the missfortunes of Dubai in Business.
2. This belongs to Business or World Events, not in Architecture.

but thanks for the pics...

The OP was meant as the Architecture views but happened to have other considerations. You are welcome to discuss the engineering and architecture part.

It is a beautiful waste of money, but so is military, so we could just build skyscrapers, although god has something against people doing that...

It started out with the tower of Babel and moved to the Pyramids....

It started out with the tower of Babel and moved to the Pyramids....
I trust you have constructive evidence to support this claim?

nice pics, thanks

Over two thirds of ALL buildings are unoccupied because no one can afford to live there and they over built as well. All of the workers that are there can't afford any of the places they built.

Other surrealistic pics:

http://englishrussia.com/?p=7227

Do all those islands make better new habitats for fish, or does it disrupt the currents and therefore hurt ocean life?

Waste of money.

Waste of money.

Well, right now it seems that way.

But in about 10 years Dubai will run totally out of oil and had to do SOMETHING to keep the money coming in. Realistically the investment in a fantasy world was as good as investing in something else.

I predict that Dubai will be back on its feet in a few years and will continue its growth as a center of commerce and a destination for the wealthy. Just. . . it'll have to wait a few years.

~String

The thing is, when the world is running out of oil, it isn't just Dubai's problem, but all the travelers' who would go there. Not to mention that all those building running on oil (air condition, electricity, waste desposal etc.) so once oil gets expensive, all the tourist attraction plan going to collapse.

..and have we mentioned that the place is incredily hostile?? (both climate and laws)

So I see a total collapse of the economy there...

The thing is, when the world is running out of oil, it isn't just Dubai's problem, but all the travelers' who would go there. Not to mention that all those building running on oil (air condition, electricity, waste desposal etc.) so once oil gets expensive, all the tourist attraction plan going to collapse.

..and have we mentioned that the place is incredily hostile?? (both climate and laws)

So I see a total collapse of the economy there...

The UAE is the first Mideast nation to be legally authorized to build nuclear reactors (http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/UAE_nuclear_power_inf123.html). They plan to have the crossover finished by 2020 and have intentions of selling cheep solar and nuclear produced power to the region.

~String

Again, just because the electricity is nuclear generated, the tourist aren't coming on nuclear or wind airplanes. The medevial laws and the incredible heat still stay and I am not sure we have time until 2020, since oil is already peaking.

The biggest danger is strictly economical as we can see it right now. As long as the world is in recession nobody (meaning the masses) will go there....Let's throw in a little military problem in the region and tourist will go somewhere where they don't get blown away by missiles...

Can 1 million locals live there fine? Sure. Are those huge investments and buildings needed for the 1 million locals? No....

Again, just because the electricity is nuclear generated, the tourist aren't coming on nuclear or wind airplanes. The medevial laws and the incredible heat still stay and I am not sure we have time until 2020, since oil is already peaking.

The biggest danger is strictly economical as we can see it right now. As long as the world is in recession nobody (meaning the masses) will go there....

Can 1 million locals live there fine? Sure. Are those huge investments and buildings needed for the 1 million locals? No....

I don't disagree with a single thing you say.

I think Dubai has some serious struggles. But, taken on the whole, I think that it'll rebound. It has an enormous population base to draw from, in a historically unstable and oppressive region. There are roughly 100 million upper-middle to wealthy class people within a 4 hour flight from the city.

The UAE's investment in all the right renewable resources, it's tax-free haven status, relative transparency and stability, the lack of overbearing regulations, the fact that it's practically giving away corporate space in its buildings, its high tech industries, its attractiveness to high end medical research, its growing hydroponic farms and investment in desalination plants, OH, and it's "fun" appeal, means (at least to me) that within 10 years it'll be attractive to investors again.

I'm not pretending to be prescient, but I think Dubai/UAE will come out on top.

~String

I wonder what will happen to Dubai if Iran gets it's shit together? I think business will move to Iran. Snow slopes in the desert? How long can that last? Hell, look at cities in Japan - even they are looking a little old. Everything has a used by date.

I wonder what will happen to Dubai if Iran gets it's shit together? I think business will move to Iran. Snow slopes in the desert? How long can that last? ...

we have water parks in the middle of cities. :shrug: I don't see what the big deal is about the snow park.

Anyways, does anyone know how many of the homes on all the man made islands are empty?
And do they serve alcohol at the Atlantis? If so, could gambling be far behind?

Well, I had a chat with my friend online who has been there a few months ago. He had a different view than mine. I guess String also made some good points, and the city planners based there plans more on the upper middle/rich class than the average middle class.
Also there are lots of tax incentives for businesses to move there, so that could be a very big advantage. My friend says that they have cooled beaches where pipes under the sand cools the sand. Also because of the laws if you drop your walet on the sidewalk it is going to be there 5 hours later.

I guess then the biggest danger for Dubai is competition. I made the analogy with Las Vegas. 60 years ago there was nothing in the middle of the Nevada desert and then they started to build. There business was/is gambling just like Dubai's is business and attraction. But once the other states realized just how good of a business is gambling, they started to open casinos everywhere and novadays almost every American can find a casino in less than 4 hours away, so there is no need to go to Vegas. To counter this Vegas started to advertise again as a family attraction place...

So the same could happen to Dubai, a few hundred miles away another country can open a special territory with tax incentives and with a better climate or maybe more geographical security and there goes Dubai's advantage...

I wonder what will happen to Dubai if Iran gets it's shit together? I think business will move to Iran. Snow slopes in the desert? How long can that last? Hell, look at cities in Japan - even they are looking a little old. Everything has a used by date.

Iran? another generation perhaps. The lack of freedom to think is a major impediment in Iran. Many years ago, when our relations were OK, we offered them engineering technology to build refineries. They could not make any decisions nor communicated with international norm. We thought, restrictive thinking inside there.

It was built with slave labor (http://blogdredd.blogspot.com/2009/12/in-support-of-slavery.html) according to British journalists, and with U.S. taxpayer dollars, according to the record.

The risk factor is just too high for the development being concentrated in such a small geographical area. What is there is a huge oilspill from a tanker? That would mess up the cooled sand beaches for a few years.
What if in a military skirmish there is a little radioactive pollution? Messed up again for decades... And those are the things that are actually not unlikely and beyond their control...

Most interesting to look at OP picture of uninhabited sand in foreground and whoopee tower in background.

Extremely exemplified by Wright Mile High, most really tall buildings are, in my humble :bugeye: opinion, monuments to egomania.

In specific example of OP, question is aroused. With all unoccupied sand close by, why stick building up? Easy enough to put building on side on empty sand.

Easy enough to figure out. Owner egomania is not mollified by flacid building laying flat on ground. Owner ego is aroused by building sticking up longer than anybody else.

It was built with slave labor (http://blogdredd.blogspot.com/2009/12/in-support-of-slavery.html) according to British journalists, and with U.S. taxpayer dollars, according to the record.
How did that happen?

Interesting as to the technical way it was built...http://www.geomarc.it/Poulos_&_Bunce_2008.pdf