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June 07, 2008
Pimping Dubai
The ability of Dubai to pimp itself is boundless, although of course sheer greed is useful to get boundless buy in, although if one is smart it would be good to question the fundamental health of the frenzy.
However, a side word on architect bollocks.
The sheer number of projects under construction and the corresponding investment in civic infrastructure — entire networks of new subway systems, freeways and canals; gargantuan new airports and public parks — can give the impression that anything is possible in this new world. The scale of these undertakings recalls the early part of the last century in America, when the country was confidently pointed toward the future. But it would be unimaginable in an American city today, where, in the face of shrinking state and city budgets, expanding a single subway line can seem like a heroic act. “In America, I could never do work like I do here,” Steven Holl, a New York architect with several large projects in China, recently told me, referring to his latest complex in Beijing. “We’ve become too backward-looking. In China, they want to make everything look new. This is their moment in time. They want to make the 21st century their century. For some reason, our society wants to make everything old. I think we somehow lost our nerve.”
Lost our nerve is the git's word for not having fallen for his horrid creations and Chinese taste is shit.
Posted by The Lounsbury at June 7, 2008 05:54 PM
Filed Under: Economic Development
, Gulf
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Comments
“In America, I could never do work like I do here,” Steven Holl, a New York architect with several large projects in China
No - well you'd have proper planning permission procedures, environmental impact considerations, health and safety demands, minimum salary requirements to name just a few tiny hurdles against pouring thousands of concrete tower blocks about.
Posted by: secretdubai at June 12, 2008 04:21 AM

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