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HYPERABIA Jensen, Boris Brorman

Published in: ARAB CONTEMPORARY

Publication date: 2014

Document Version: Early version, also known as pre-print

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Citation for pulished version (APA): Jensen, B. B. (2014). HYPERABIA: ON URBAN SPACE AND ARCHITECTURE IN THE . In M. J. Holm, & M. M. Kallehauge (Eds.), ARAB CONTEMPORARY (pp. 224-237). Louisiana. http://www.louisiana.dk/uk/Menu/Exhibitions/Arab+contemporary

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Download date: 26. Sep. 2021 HYPERABIA ON URBAN SPACE AND ARCHITECTURE IN THE UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

BY BORIS BRORMAN JENSEN

Intensive globalization has been the order of the day in the United Arab Emirates in recent years. Boris Brorman Jensen focuses on architectural developments in two of the Emirates with the question “Is there a locally distinct architecture, or is it subject to the spirit of the global market?”

DUBAIS’S STRIKING CORRIDOR along Sheikh Zayed Road in morning mist. The city-state in the United Arab Emirates has seen huge growth since the beginning of the millennium. Less than four decades ago this area was by and large uninhabited desert.

224 The so-called Arab Spring times has gone viral. The reb- new fronts and exploring the that has spread from Tunisia, els’ mobilization and the use potential in the use of the new Egypt and Libya to large parts of social media as autonomous commu nication technologies. of the Arab world may not be command posts have redefined Yet it is still an open question an expression of any ‘spring’ in the space of political action and what the so-called Arab Spring a political sense. But although created a new framework for will mean for architecture in the democratic hopes that were individual activism. The Arab the region. sparked in December 2010 world has seen an alternative Architecture is a bound, seem at the time of writing to public sphere grow up that is relatively conservative art have been superseded by grow- hard to control through state form and although it may be an ing despondency and pessi- censorship, and the tradition- unreliable sign, ‘free’ art often mism, it is still hard to imagine ally separated and hermetically functions as a forewarning of the developments rolled back. isolated private sphere has the changes that architecture The events have shifted some been opened up. will later undergo. As a func- demarcation lines. Occupa- The resulting shift in the tion of political and cultural tions of central squares, mass established dividing-lines norms, Arab architecture has processions and street fighting among social, cultural and been characterized by clear have left us with a picture of an political spaces can be read divisions between private and awoken political public sphere. directly out of the current art public space, but there are With social media such as in the region, where a new good reasons to expect that Facebook, Youtube and Twitter generation of artists seems the changes outlined above the stifled criticism of former preoccupied with scanning the between the public and private

225 spheres will in the longer term also be reflected in the archi- tecture. Developments can go in many directions, and the present developments do not yet paint any clear picture. When one looks at the individual states in the re- gion, very di+erent situations emerge. In Egypt the upheavals on Tahrir Square in Cairo have led to a certain responsive- ness and a turbulent reform process, while the revolt in Bahrain has been brutally crushed with more oppression and the consolidation of the dominant power structure as a result. Nor do the country’s PEARL SQUARE in Manama, the capital of Bahrain, was at the rich neighbours, Abu Dhabi and centre of a budding rebellion – the leading countries which was quashed with an iron fist. Even the physical urban in the United Arab Emirates space has been eradi cated. The and the subjects of the follow- three satellite pictures were ing – seem to be a+ected by the taken in January, March and May 2010 respec tively. uprisings around them. Both countries deny any suggestion of crisis and have invested massively in the development of a profitable tourist industry. They have long been working to appear relatively liberal, but despite ongoing criticism from human rights groups and external NGOs the ruling circles still operate undisturbed within their own territory, and their power is legitimized exclusive- ly by decrees that are beyond discussion, and by charismatic self-staging.1 Ostensibly, every- THERE IS SOMETHING thing is always under absolute of science fiction or SimCity about Dubai. You can’t see it if control. Domina tion is rooted you don’t happen to know about in a perfect, static bastion that it, but the gigantic structure on the left in the picture and the contrasts starkly with the dra- huge pool form Dubai’s most matic development in urban prominent urban space.

226 BORIS BRORMAN JENSEN and architectural space over to which very many architec- spite everything the two Emir- the past three decades. Instead, tural o.ces all over ates have been the region’s constant hyper-growth is seen must adapt. Architecture has, biggest construction sites for as an expression of power’s for better or for worse, become many years now, and there is excellent capacity for dynamic an export commodity, and the no reason to wholly dismiss the self-perfection. images and cultural symbols phenomena that are emerging This political/cultural that globalization has sent into on the cultural surface. paradox is underscored by an orbit a+ect even the smallest of The Louisiana’s exhibi- externally origina ting, authen- small towns. It is not uncom- tion New Nordic – architecture ticity-seeking cultural critique mon for architectural ‘copies’ and identity in 2012 revolved which maintains that the many to be built before their origi- around the Nordic architects’ radical development plans nals. The global building in- attempts to develop, reinter- and spectacular construction dustry can go ahead and ‘print’ pret and reform public build- projects taking place in the two any architectural rendering ings, institutions and spaces. Emirates have nothing to do anywhere in the world. With or A guiding principle in the with Arab culture and exist in without the participation of the exhibition was the question of another reality than the Arab architect. architecture’s relationship with one. But at the same time the context and the Nordic The two Emirates have globalization has also proved architects’ exploration of the undeniably undergone rapid capable of promo ting a local building traditions, materials globalization over the past cou- cultivation of di+erences. and climate of the local area; ple of decades, and the physical Dubai and Abu Dhabi a particular sensibility that environ ment seems almost to have often been stigmatized the Norwegian architectural have been ‘SimCitified’ by the as antitheses or fake repre sen- historian Christian Norberg- homogenizing power of the tations of ‘the Arab’. The prob- Schulz summed up in the con- world wide machinery of specu- lem with this is that it partly cept ‘Genius Loci’ – the idea of lation. This is expressed by dismantles the illusion that the the presence of a ‘spirit of the an architecture that does not Arab societies would be able to place’ in architecture.2 relate to physical context and set more of their rich culture As an extension of this it site-specificity, but looks the free if paths were opened up is interesting to ask the follow- same everywhere on the planet. for more political and cultural ing questions: How does the The large, more or less state- exchanges. absence of a bourgeois public run con tracting companies that And as a corollary, if Dubai sphere3 come to expression operate in Dubai and Abu Dha- and Abu Dhabi are truly to be in the architecture of the two bi have been successful in ex- considered Arab exceptions Emirates, and what institution- porting their ideas to countries subject to cultural hyper- al role does architecture play both within and outside the inflation or runaway private in the all-encompassing one- region. Global imports/exports enterprise without roots in the dimensional space, private and are probably not what archi- region – then it seems unfruit- political, of these countries? Is tects with an interest in culti- ful entirely to set aside the there a local specificity – or has vating and developing regional critical reflections to which the Genius Loci become ‘Genius distinctiveness primarily have developments in the two Emir- Logo’ – architecture entirely in mind. But the unlimited ates give rise. The architecture subordinated to the spirit of exchanges of formal idioms in Dubai and Abu Dhabi o+ers global marketing? 4 are never theless a new market very little evidence of the depth What role does it play that condition for architecture, one of Arab cultural history, but de- most of the construction in

227 the two Emirates is designed commercially operated. The that one finds elsewehere in by architects from the outside, classic distinction between the region. The classic ele- and what ideals do they try to private and public is a vital an- ment of Arab architecture, the represent? tithesis in architectural think- mashrabiya, which lets the ob- ing, but this central element in server look out without being modern urban planning makes seen, is a rare sight in the mod- FROM PUBLIC TO no di+erence whatsoever to ern air-conditioned buildings PUBLISHED SPACE the private utopias that drive of the Emirates. The filigree It is hard to imagine the built development in the Emirates. pattern of the mashrabiya or- environment in the two rich The absence of true public namentation, which character- Emirates undergoing a trans- space means that one must izes the historical architecture formation as a result of popular instead try to distinguish be- of the region, has been replaced protests under the present tween private space and on the by screening construction regime. Neither Dubai nor Abu one hand what could be called components, especially mir- Dhabi has in reality any kind published space on the other. ror glass, which means that of political public sphere. The Private spaces are character- the individual expression of turbocharged development in istically places and spaces that the street space is entirely the two Emirates seems to have are either gated communities dissolved in some places. The accelerated the clan- and tribe- or otherwise inaccessible to modern facade-screening ne- governed social system from a outsiders. Published spaces can gates the social radar that func- premodern feudal state directly be defined as images of private tions in Nordic urban space but into a globalized era. There are property that are openly circu- at the same time, in particular- lots of symbols of power and lated in various media. Private ly successful cases, it creates of the economic elite around spaces are always more or less fascinating reflective spaces on streets and squares, but discreet and protected. that replace uncontrolled in- the physical space has been The Emirates have several sight with the phantasmagori- completely cleared of counter- neighbour hoods of gated com- cally eye-catching. cultures. Strictly speaking it is munities where no outsider The virtual opposite of meaningless to speak at all of can enter without an invita- private space – published space a ‘public sphere’ in the tradi- tion. Large parts of the most – may be trademark-protected, tional sense. The concept quite spectacular projects are also but on the whole is always on simply has no constitutional closed areas and private spac- display and more or less strate- precedent, since the state is by es, for example the artificial gically exposed outside its own definition private property. Up island group The World, the property boundary. The archi- to 90% of what one in everyday skyscraper , the tecture of ‘published space’ language calls ‘the population’ tallest building in the world, is not formed by the distinc- in the two Emirates consists of and all the branches of the ar- tions and transitions between foreign workers on temporary tificial palm peninsulas Palm public and private spaces. It is stays without any kind of politi- Jumeirah and . governed by di+erent architec- cal rights. Only a small minor- The entrenchment of the pri- tural concepts based on one of ity of the 10% who are ‘national vate permeates urban space two di+erent contextual views: citizens’ owns all the land, and as in many other Arab cities, either total local subjection to there is no space that in prin- but the formal idiom and orna- the client; or a distanced politi- ciple belongs to everyone. All mentation of the boundaries cal agnosticism. land and property is in private are marked otherwise than in There are many di+erent hands and is either ‘gated’ or the traditional urban milieux types and varieties of published

228 BORIS BRORMAN JENSEN POLITICAL SPACE in the UAE is entirely one-dimensional. The prevailing aesthetic diver sity does not apply to political representation. Here we see the charismatic leader, former President Sheikh Zayed, in an elevated pose by a motorway exit.

MOST PRIVATE UTOPIAS in Dubai are literally introverted; they turn their backs on the surroundings to protect their inner worlds. Most of the residential projects are either gated or surrounded by a ring wall, like this entrenched residential enclave not far from the Mall of the Emirates at Sheikh Zayed Road.

THE MODERNIST ARCHITECTS played with the idea of a curtain-wall of translucent glass. The generic architecture in the Emirates screens o+ from the sun and the outside gaze. The classic ‘curtain wall’ facades of the skyscraper architecture, as here on the Dubai skyline, have been given a ‘Ray-Ban’ attitude.

229 DUBAI’S ‘GEOGLYPHS’ seen from Google Earth. The three palms and the property development adventure ‘The World’ were hard hit by the international financial crisis and remain partly unfinished. Nevertheless they have set new standards for the branding of cities. The phenomenon spread quickly to other countries in the region including Bahrain and Qatar.

SHEIKH ZAYED ROAD forms a kind of arrival portal and principal stage set for Dubai’s symbolic space. Here we find the biggest concentration of the most spectacular . Viewed from the right angle, an impressive sight – but 150 metres from the prominent linear-perspective view the set collapses like a Potemkin corridor.

SHEIKH ZAYED ROAD seen from the Dubai Metro. There is not much life between the houses out along the eight-lane motorway, but from inside the air-conditioned first-class cabin the almost unbridgeable distances of the desert city become an expe rience like a Fritz Lang movie.

230 BORIS BRORMAN JENSEN space. The biggest and best where as a rule you can get in tion. But published space never known are globally marketed if you pay admission. It is also o+ers its owner any resistance, corporate brands that gather a possible to get on to the beach has no collective memory, variety of business strategies in several places without a requires no consciousness of in a physical design, for exam- ticket. But these relatively free tradition and in principle is ple the architect Jon Jerde’s activity spaces lie as isolated entirely detached from time Dubai Festival City. The most islands in a sea of commercial and space. The architecture of conspicuous examples of the business areas and private for- published space not only pro- type appear in the form of gi- tifications. duces images of ‘the new’, like ant symbols in Google Earth It can be hard to tell the fashion industry; it has also – but without the ‘street view’ whether a published space you embarked on the fictionaliza- option. Published space often have seen in print also exists in tion of the past. The newly built appears as clusters of ‘bottle reality. Computer renderings neighbourhood Al Bastakiya in architecture’ separated by ar- and other edited reality are in Dubai is a good example of how tificial irrigation and boil ing fierce competition with the the stage design of published asphalt with no visible signs realities in this game. But deep- space can negate chronology of life between the buildings. est down it does not matter, for and o+er all possible styles: The best example is probably published space is a catalogue past, present and future archi- Sheikh Zayed Road in Dubai. item, and in the end far more tecture at one and the same Other types are more ethereal of it is produced than the world time. The architecture of pub- and behave rather like mirages: has room for. Published space lished space has exclusively a highly published skyline with supplants the common good pecuniary obligations and no solid base, which disappears and replaces it with a latent in principle can expand its and dissolves like a spatial il- world of computer anima- formal universe endlessly. It lusion when one approaches; tions – an eternally expanding thus forms the substrate for a various aircraft-landing and space of desires and fantasies. new architecture of frivolity, motorway scenarios orient- It is a spatial concept related released from limiting social ed towards focal points for to the theme park, whose only considerations and civic bur- financial power, but without mission is to capitalize on its dens, quite free to develop identifiable spatial qualities architectural illusions. The new technological solutions, outside the mediated ‘experi- architecture of published space programmatic concepts and ence cabin’; the city reduced works through its strong il- aesthetic expression which to a series of Kodak Moments lusory power, and many of the may (or may not) be traceable and Skytrain aesthetics. Other best designed examples, such back to a more committed types of published space are as the well equipped shopping political/cultural context. The more alluring and exuberant, malls and the modern tra.c tautological expressiveness 5 like the evening show in front systems hum with activity and of this architecture of frivol- of Burj Khalifa. Some are more give the impression of diversity ity perhaps leads to a general or less Paradise-like tableaux and public life. Published space strengthening of architecture of glossy worlds created as a compensates to a certain extent as form and style. But the ques- consumption context for the for the absence of public space, tion is whether the runaway absolute elite, for example the and may feature elements of formalism in the two Emirates Hotel – exclu sive symbolic altruism: a captivat- will ever contribute to the reso- by virtue of their inaccessibility ing sculpture in a beautiful lution of some of the issues that for the man in the street. roundabout or kilometres of the future population of the There are of course parks imaginative motorway decora- region will have to address.

231 A PATH BETWEEN CARICATURE AND SENSATIONALISM? Most architectural theorists agree that it takes more than a client with a yen to invest to turn construction into ar- chitecture. Even a very strong desire to invest does not auto- matically lead to great archi- tecture. Some bearing idea, cultural ambition or conscious experiment should be in play. Manic construction activity is not an architectural goal in itself, and in this connection many attempts have been made to understand the qualita tive specificity of the two Emir- ates’ particularly expansive urban development strate gies and more or less conscious planning and architectural policies.6 Most accounts drawn up by various practicing archi- tects, architectural writers and cultural observers fall rough- ly speaking into three main groups: the sensational report, the caricature and the heroic chronology. The last of these is THE ATRIUM in the 321-metre tall luxury hotel Burj Al Arab in Dubai. The hotel was the first the most widespread and typ- project to move out to its own island in the water ically periodizes develop ment o+ the coast and in many ways was the precursor into four stages: (1) a static of the later geoglyph projects such as the Palms and The World. Burj Al Arab was at the same time petty trading and pearl-fishing the ruling Mactoum family’s claim to fame and society (until the 1950s) in a financial dynamo. ‘cradle of the nation’ at the edge of undeveloped desert which (2) with British engi- neering assistance (1950s-1971) is able to develop an elementa- ry infrastructure; (3) the dis- covery of oil and the creation of the independent Emirate (from

1971 until the early 21st centu- AN OFFICIAL VERSION of “The Heroic ry), which slowly and steadily Chronology”, exhibited in .

232 BORIS BRORMAN JENSEN develops contours with the aid architectural history is reduced expounded by all as a fantastical of heroic visions (realized from to a linear royal succession of ‘Amokland’ where the architec- the beginning of the 2000s on), motorway and construction ture can be regarded as an ad- and despite the international projects, all documented and vanced form of ‘water globe sou- financial crisis has been en- dated by series of satellite and venir’ that the architect can take hanced into a global reserva- aerial photos from the past on further business trips and tion for the development of forty years. This one-sided ac- exhibit at a website. The sensa- so-called ‘starchitecture’. count of development makes tional report envisages a gigan- Each phase has its myths sense in a context where power tic EXPO without restrictions and narratives about challeng- is inherited and is not chal- from a surrounding civil society; es and triumphs. However, the lenged, but does not seem par- a dreamland full of customers overall national epic, including ticularly interesting when the and clients on investment-driv- the latest, My Vision: Challeng- architectural development of en hunts for the iconic aura of es in the Race for Excel lence, by the Emirates is viewed in a wid- the architecture of the frivolous the Emir and Prime Minister er context. The monomaniac – the locus of inconceivable pos- of Dubai, Vice President of the architectural history of endur- sibilities where the architects United Arab Emirates, Sheikh ing love for the young, dynamic of the world can concentrate on Mohammed bin Rashid Al Mac- nation has no dialectical oppo- working up the most imagina- toum, provides only one theme sitions and must therefore rely tive illustrations of the current of architec tural history, where on the chronology of the works. business plans. The interpreta- all the measures taken, even The heroic chronology’s tion of the sensational report is the least signi ficant, become blind bedazzlement with the positive and views this as a great symbols of the o.cial self-un- building boom has much in emancipation for architecture. derstanding based on one long common with both the sensa- Gone are all the social and cul- national-romantic epic. The tional report and the caricature. tural impositions, the scruples heroic chronology is often In principle they all reach the about authenticity, the burdens narrated in images taken with same conclusion, but on oppo- of tradition and contextual con- a long-distance lens where the site premises. The Emirates are siderations. In this ‘exceptional

233 logic’ architectural feats can be not least Utzon. So in that light away from the Emirates; but judged on the degree of luxury the idea of stealing the Inter- that only precludes the possi- or ranked by size as in the Guin- national Style back seems very bility of influencing develop- ness Book of Records .7 attractive. The weakness in the ments through active inter- The criteria of success for sensational report’s implicit vention. In other words one the architectural sensations analysis, however, is a lack of should find a path out of this, are literally in private hands, interest in critical discourses. somewhere between the abso- and all formal value judge- The sensational report’s lute contempt of the caricature ments are reduced to a lower opposite number, the carica- and the bedazzled gawping of order of subjective preferences. ture, does not lack a sense of the sensational report. Like w or dislike t. A consis- criticism. Most representatives tent meta-thesis in the many of this genre are comic tales of sensational reports is that the lost worlds or rather cultural TROJAN HORSES Arab world, with Dubai and clearance sales in what has OR MONUMENTS Abu Dhabi at its head, has gone been called Dreamworlds of TO REPRESSIVE fully in for the development Neoliberalism,9 which describe TOLERANCE? of ‘The International Style’;8 the architecture in Dubai as In 1995, the Dutch architect that the region at present oc- a nightmare from the past in Rem Koolhaas, who has in sev- cupies a leading position in the which Albert Speer meets Walt eral contexts discussed the tur- worldwide skyscraper race; and Disney.10 The historian Mike bocharged developments in the that ‘Arabia’, through cultural Davis and other indignant UAE and the other Gulf States, appropri ation of the archaic writers argue that architecture published an essay on Singa- typologies of modernity, is now must be able to face political pore, which in many respects actively con tributing to archi- criticism at any time, and that represents a precedent and an tecture’s global evolution; and ‘context’ also includes the interesting basis of comparison even though in many people’s political climate. In their eyes for what is happening at pres- eyes there are far more bad ‘Project Dubai’ has gone o+ the ent in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. than good examples to point rails in terms of the environ- Koolhaas remarked at the time to, and even though the experi- ment, human rights and for that what we perceive as West- ment at present does not seem that matter urban planning. ern has become a universal to be strengthening the region’s Davis’s critique is relevant and ideal, on which we in the West own architectural development topical, but the problem with no longer hold a patent. – for example by develo ping seeing developments in the two So what Singapore’s ar- a sustainable, present-day Emirates exclusively as politi- chitecture underwent was not vernacular (native) architec- cal parodies is that the critique westernization, but modern- ture) – the sensa tional report keeps back anything resem- ization.11 does have a point. The further bling constructive architectur- Koolhaas’ attempt to development of the Interna- al criticism. The built-in irony understand and challenge tional Style in Arab cultural of the caricatures o+ers no the inherent logic of the Gulf space completes a cycle which sustenance to much more than States’ architectural and urban has in many ways been over- boycotts on hand, and development has nourished a looked. The architecture of the on the other hand even more couple of interesting projects modernist break through was cynicism from the expatriate with di+erent approaches to clearly inspired by North Afri- architects who will build come what one could call projective can and Arab architecture. So what may. As an architect one criticism. The strategy can were the Nordic regionalists, can of course choose to stay be paralleled with the Danish

234 BORIS BRORMAN JENSEN visual artist Asger Jorn’s over- painted hotel-art pictures. In the same way as Jorn shook up the ‘naturalized idyll’ of the genre painting or turned it inside out, in several of its projects Koolhaas’ o.ce OMA has installed what may be lik- ened to Jorn’s A Disturbing Duck,12 for example in the form of the Star Wars Deathstar in the Waterfront City pro ject in Dubai.13 The project was not an endgame for the Dubai Space Opera, but it launched a discussion of the ongoing ar- chitectural ‘star wars’ and the attempt to create a world-class city with the aid of iconic build- ings. Another good example is their Dubai Renaissance proj- ect from 2006. The 200-metre long and 300-metre tall mod- ernist monolith represents a direct criticism of the trinity in the Emirates’ architectural credo: thematization, iconic desire and idolatry. Mixed in with the clear statement there is at the same time a layer of critical connotations. Part of OMA (THE NETHERLANDS), DUBAI RENAISSANCE, the national mythology is the DUBAI, 2006 tenacious anecdote of how the OMA (THE NETHERLANDS), WATERFRONT CITY, Emirates, after 11 September DUBAI, 2008 2001, have been able to deflect anger against the western world and sublimate it into a potent Islamic crea tive force. If one studies the details of the facade expression of the OMA project, other more diaboli- cal undertones emerge. It is claimed in several quarters14 that the logistical network behind al-Qaeda operates through the UAE, and it is hard

235 not to see the building as a death mask of the World Trade Center. The project is unlikely to topple its own client, but it is still able to suggest the con- tours of a Janus-head in the o.cial profile of the regime. Subversive aesthetics are e+ective within the world of art, and have made their ap- pearance in earnest in Abu Dhabi. On a partly artificial island close to the existing cen- tre, nothing less will be built than one Guggenheim Museum by Frank Gehry, one Louvre by Jean Nouvel, one National Museum by Norman Foster, one Performing Arts Center by Zaha Hadid and one Maritime Museum by Tadao Ando. It will be exciting to see whether the European and American cultural mastodons with their whole content of feminist art, nudity, homosexuality, political critique and other emancipa- tory creativity will become Trojan Horses or monuments to repressive tolerance.

OMA (THE NETHERLANDS), WATERFRONT CITY DUBAI, 2008 BORIS BRORMAN JENSEN (b. 1968), trained as an architect OMA (THE NETHERLANDS), (MAA) at the School of Architecture DUBAI RENAISSANCE, 2006 in Aarhus and has a PhD in urbanism from Aalborg University. Today Jensen is an associate professor at the School of Architecture in Aarhus, where he has taught and researched Danish and international urban development since 2007.

236 BORIS BRORMAN JENSEN NOTES 9 The best representative of this genre is probably Mike Davis: “Sand, Fear and Money in Dubai” 1 The German sociologist Max in Davis & Bertrand Monk (eds.) Weber distinguishes between legal, Dreamworlds of Neoliberalism B traditional and charismatic autho- Evil Paradises , The New Press, NY, rity. Here, on the basis of my own 2007 pp. 48 B68. judgement, I have pointed to tradi- tional and charismatic domination 10 Op. cit. p. 68. as the pillars of the form of gover- nment in the Emirates. See Max 11 Rem Koolhaas: “Singapore Song- Weber: Makt og Byråkrati , Copen- lines B Portrait of a Potemkin Me- hagen, Gyldendal 2000. tropolis ... or Thirty Years of Tabula Rasa”, in Koolhaas & Mau (eds.) 2 See Christian Norberg-Schulz: S,M,L,XL , The Monacelli Press, NY Genius Loci: Towards a Phenom- 1995, p. 1013. enology of Architecture , Academy Editions, 1980. 12 “Le canard inqiétant” from 1959.

3 The concept bourgeois public 13 See http://www.oma.eu sphere is defined in the Danish The project is incidentally a varia- Encyclopedia as follows: “As a tion on the same theme as the Ras sociological term public sphere or Al Khaimah Convention Centre. bourgeois public sphere is viewed as a social and cultural context 14 “With open borders, multiethnic within which citizens in a bour- society and freewheeling business geois, liberal society exchange rules, the Emirates remains vital to ideas, evaluations and criticism al-Qaeda operations,” said Evan F. related to common concerns.” See Kohlmann, a Washington-based also Jürgen Habermas: Borgerlig terrorism researcher. Dubai still o:entlighed , Informations Forlag, “plays a key role for al-Qaeda as Copen hagen 2009. a through-point and a money transfer location,” Kohlmann said, 4 See also Boris Brorman Jensen: although he also noted the country Dubai – Dynamics of Bingo Urba- could be working to combat such nism , Arkitekturforlaget B, Copen- activity with “an aggressive but hagen 2007, p. 92. low-profile intelligence strategy.” Al-Qaeda isn’t the only organiza- 5 An architecture that manifests tion that has found Dubai useful. nothing but its own idiom. The father of Pakistan’s nuclear programme, Abdul Qadeer Khan, 6 I can particularly recommend Pe- has acknowledged heading a clan- ter Rowe and Stephen J. Ramos: destine group that, with the help of “Planning, Prototyping, and Repli- a Dubai company, supplied Paki- cation in Dubai”, in Ahmed Kanna stani nuclear technology to Iran, (ed.) The Superlative City B Dubai Libya and North Korea.” Cf. USA and the Urban Condition in the Today Early Twenty-First Century . Har- vard University Graduate School of Design, 2013, pp. 19-33.

7 “Dubai likes to set records, which is why Guinness World Records is opening an obce in the city”. See http://gulfbusiness.com

8 Here in the sense of generic mo- dernism. The concept was origi- nally introduced by Philip John son and Henry-Russell Hitchcock in the book The International Style , which followed on the heels of MoMA’s exhibition on modern architecture in 1932.

237