Sep 9, 08:50 pm
THE DUBAI EXPERIMENT
George Katodrytis and Khalid Al Najjar
Under the title “The Dubai Experiment,” our presentation will attempt a new approach to the problem of the contemporary city using some of our research at the School of Architecture and Design of the American University of Sharjah, and our own. We will propose ways of dealing with Dubai, a prototype of a city in rapid development at the end of the 20th century. The city of Dubai, as we see it now, like so many others especially in Asia, did not exist in the post-industrial or post-consumerism periods; it was created during the post-globalization storm. The Dubai Experiment is an approach to “Hybrid Urbanism” that treats the city as both Global and Local. In this context, Dubai is seen as a model for development that is already imitated by other gulf states.
This approach is neither nostalgic nor idealistic. It is not based on issues relating to “identity” which centralizes and resists expansion. It is not based on the modernist dogma of purity and universality. It deals with reality and utilizes the creativity of the participant. It uses direct observation and participation to reveal invisible systems. It is intuitive and spontaneous.
The city of Dubai is seen as dynamic, heterogeneous, generic and complex. Its dynamism points to one thing: consumption, either as “trading” or as “spectacle.” This observation provides an interesting platform for research.
Major changes are taking place. We find ourselves at an interesting point, since a new type of globalization can be seen. Once potentials and values have been identified, one might be able to talk about the strength of the “interconnectiveness.”
trading
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. To the visitor, the city might seem peculiar: heterogeneous, hyperactive and with no apparent hierarchy, yet everything points to one thing: commercial exchange and consumption. Urbanism and Architecture act as interface to trading and purchasing, to the short-lived experience.
mirage
Traveling through the cityscape of Dubai is like experiencing a continuous shift between eye and mind, as though no difference existed between them. Mirage-like and delirious, the city has definitely ceased to be an object; it has become the condition. Hence, the new “City” speaks to the erosion of differences and with spatial discontinuity. As Rem Koolhaas mentions: “The Generic City is what is left after large sections of urban life have crossed over to cyberspace.”
Cities like Dubai represent the hybrid condition of the contemporary city. They are places where history has been almost completely blotted out, where the terrain has become completely artificial, where the urban tissues do not hold together beyond a relatively short time. This type of generic city amounts to no more than the coexistence of a number of apparently unconnected buildings that, by virtue of proximity, form an urban condition.
Perhaps the nearest analogy to the mode of production of this new type of city is Photoshop, which creates collages of photographs and other digitized images, combining and layering anything with anything, as though in an accumulation of objects of desire.
In this type of city, the notions of center and periphery have lost their validity. What is more, it seems as though the city has lost its site, for it tends to be everywhere and nowhere. This fragmented and collaged city, which is perpetually being made and remade “a la carte.”
participation / spontaneous condition
As if in a scene from a film such as “Blade Runner,” Dubai’s streets are filled with noise, trading, buying and selling: pandemonium. At nightfall, the chaotic operations of bazaars and souks overtake the bland high-street blocks, reducing buildings to backdrops. At such moments, as urban spaces merge with street culture, the city is truly at its best. Yet, the urban space-street culture duality expresses neither traditionalist nor modernist dogmas. It is a spontaneous condition, driven by the instinct for survival, utility, finance, and emotion, in an act of self-stylization. Shopping becomes the only truly public space.
urban consumption
The good news is that the city has not lost its mystery, idiosyncrasy and toy-like quality. Within this landscape, our direct participation gives rise to individual strategies for the construction of space, while mirroring the contemporary experience of urban life. Starting from recordings and observations of the “instantaneous,” the work re-imagines, redefines or reinvents public spaces. This “design of moments” becomes a technique of “mending” the fragmented and disconnected parts. Rather than falling into the trap of seeing the city from an idealistic/romantic perspective, the work aims at exposing the entrails of architecture, at discovering unique and invisible opportunities. Precision, technique, invention and originality are prerequisites of this process.
urban complexity / urban weaving
Beyond its apparent lack of identity, this city demonstrates a hybrid and complex urbanism that has an invisible infrastructure of a non-hierarchical activities, goods, and participants. More than a static collection of buildings, this city can be described as a piling-up of activities that change more quickly than construction/planning can respond. Existing buildings seem unable to sustain this dynamic, complex and fluid “urban condition”, which is both hybrid and synthetic.
In an act of self-stylization, Dubai is a raw experiment in the context of this “hybridization”, where any proposed structure is ultimately measured by its ability to thrive in new and unpredictable conditions. Using direct participation, mapping, simulation, sequence, and re-enactment a series of transformations turn daily behaviour and data-scape into a land-scape, which responds to the uniqueness of this city.
urban fiction
For every fast-forward of the frontage, there is a flipside of residual and dark spaces, by-products and leftover conditions, which are equally vibrant.
freeform exteriors
The contemporary city is like the contemporary airport or shopping mall – “all the same.” It creates its own identity, liberating itself from the notion of the centre.
synthetic interiors
Air conditioning and escalators have transformed all interiors into consumption spaces, where the artificial is more desirable than the natural. A research from 1950s of a windowless store describes a retail space “free from daylight or natural ventilation, thereby eliminating dust and at the same time creating better, air-washed, mechanical ventilation and more uniform, pleasing artificial lighting results. In many ways the elimination of windows adds a selling point.” By making interior spaces more large and comfortable, it is increasingly difficult to escape them.
This is the new “hybrid” condition and “The Dubai experiment”.
Filed under: PUBLISHED-ARTICLES+ Texts-CITY