a superweak introduction by rem, the regions new apologista. less than the stagnation of current western critical thought, the problem seems to be the stagnation of new urban models. and claims that what emerges is beyond the entrenched western critic seems dubious in light of what actually emerges. for too long, argumentation has been used as a way to construct false discourses, fake justifications. dancing around qualification creates an endless quantity of unqualified observations. on the verge of sounding overtly western, the fetishizing of dubai and co. is orientalist at best, with all its contingent cultural and historic forces as cooly objectified as the architecture.
I have trouble accepting accept a review from someone who uses a double negative for his/her screen name and terms like “superweak”, but I am curious to see this publication. Still can’t find it. Found a review in the FT, or would you say this is a neo-liberal plot, a continuation of an old architect's ambition to trick us all into cheering his architecture on?
Published: September 15 2007 03:00 | Last updated: September 15 2007 03:00
Al Manakh: Analysis of Developments Along the Gulf. A Guide, a Survey, an Agenda edited by Rem Koolhaas, Mitra Khoubrou and Ole Bouman Archis Foundation €29.90, 500 pages
There are, broadly speaking, two types of architecture books. There's architecture porn, all moody pictures and sharp shadows, and there are books jammed painfully full of impenetrable academic cliche that should have remained as the PhD theses they once were.
Al Manakh, published by AMO, the think-tank of Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas's Office for Metropolitan Architecture, is defiantly neither. With shaky photos that seem to have been taken on cellphones, and short, punchy texts that take on difficult issues and never lapse into jargon or condescension, this odd book represents a serious attempt to analyse the development explosion in the Gulf states.
This is worth doing now because these booming skylines are becoming the model for ambitious urban development, a model which is feeding into thriving cities of the Far East, and also back into those of the US and old Europe.
The cities of the Gulf, Dubai especially, have become laboratories for architects and planners. They are cities without end. Though far from completion, the Burj Dubai recently became the world's tallest building (at 140 storeys). There are now 500 skyscrapers under construction. The coastline has become a lucrative alternative to oil, so developers built hundreds of miles more in the shape of the Palm Jumeirah and The World - islands formed from dredged sand to give maximum beachfront area.
Skyscrapers, traditionally a sign of land scarcity, sit on spacious plots while the city sprawls on for ever. Density is subverted by the unusual fact that, of a population of 1.6 million, only 200,000 are from Dubai. The rest are migrant workers from the top and the bottom of the social hierarchy - western bankers and Pakistani labourers, the former in theatrical penthouse apartments and gated developments, the latter in windowless dorms.
This is also the place where the contemporary city is finally acknowledged as a theme park. These are, as Koolhaas points out, resorts more than cities. It is a land of superlatives: the tallest, the biggest, the most expensive. Lush golf courses and ski slopes in the desert, the highest skyscrapers, the most luxurious shopping centres, gargantuan hotels all looking like somewhere else, some other time. There is no room for the ordinary.
The Gulf has become a magnet for architecture's superstars. But most of the building is done by local architects imitating western trends or attempting to inject Islamic motifs, and by huge western engineering firms. Unlike in Europe and the US, where the iconic tower is the preserve of an architectural elite, in the Gulf it has become the default formal language, almost a vernacular. Al Manakh (the title is a play on guidebook and the word's Arabic meaning, "climate") is never patronising towards what is emerging. Koolhaas makes no distinction between avant-garde and commercial, and enthusiastically analyses the work of the faceless international bureaux of masterplanners and engineers who are building this new Babel.
Nor is this survey selectively blind. Corruption, hypocrisy, inequality, unsustainability are all interrogated here. There is even a letter criticising Koolhaas for getting involved with a competition to build a new HQ for Gazprom. This is an unconventional architecture book but, as Koolhaas writes, architects are in a unique position of needing to understand the sociology, finance, politics and culture of the places in which they build. They rarely use that knowledge for anything beyond building. When an architect like Koolhaas applies it elsewhere, the result should be compulsory reading.
Sep 19, 07 12:42 pm ·
·
Block this user
Are you sure you want to block this user and hide all related comments throughout the site?
Archinect
This is your first comment on Archinect. Your comment will be visible once approved.
5 Comments
a superweak introduction by rem, the regions new apologista. less than the stagnation of current western critical thought, the problem seems to be the stagnation of new urban models. and claims that what emerges is beyond the entrenched western critic seems dubious in light of what actually emerges. for too long, argumentation has been used as a way to construct false discourses, fake justifications. dancing around qualification creates an endless quantity of unqualified observations. on the verge of sounding overtly western, the fetishizing of dubai and co. is orientalist at best, with all its contingent cultural and historic forces as cooly objectified as the architecture.
I have trouble accepting accept a review from someone who uses a double negative for his/her screen name and terms like “superweak”, but I am curious to see this publication. Still can’t find it. Found a review in the FT, or would you say this is a neo-liberal plot, a continuation of an old architect's ambition to trick us all into cheering his architecture on?
Boom with a view
By Edwin Heathcote
Published: September 15 2007 03:00 | Last updated: September 15 2007 03:00
Al Manakh: Analysis of Developments Along the Gulf. A Guide, a Survey, an Agenda edited by Rem Koolhaas, Mitra Khoubrou and Ole Bouman Archis Foundation €29.90, 500 pages
There are, broadly speaking, two types of architecture books. There's architecture porn, all moody pictures and sharp shadows, and there are books jammed painfully full of impenetrable academic cliche that should have remained as the PhD theses they once were.
Al Manakh, published by AMO, the think-tank of Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas's Office for Metropolitan Architecture, is defiantly neither. With shaky photos that seem to have been taken on cellphones, and short, punchy texts that take on difficult issues and never lapse into jargon or condescension, this odd book represents a serious attempt to analyse the development explosion in the Gulf states.
This is worth doing now because these booming skylines are becoming the model for ambitious urban development, a model which is feeding into thriving cities of the Far East, and also back into those of the US and old Europe.
The cities of the Gulf, Dubai especially, have become laboratories for architects and planners. They are cities without end. Though far from completion, the Burj Dubai recently became the world's tallest building (at 140 storeys). There are now 500 skyscrapers under construction. The coastline has become a lucrative alternative to oil, so developers built hundreds of miles more in the shape of the Palm Jumeirah and The World - islands formed from dredged sand to give maximum beachfront area.
Skyscrapers, traditionally a sign of land scarcity, sit on spacious plots while the city sprawls on for ever. Density is subverted by the unusual fact that, of a population of 1.6 million, only 200,000 are from Dubai. The rest are migrant workers from the top and the bottom of the social hierarchy - western bankers and Pakistani labourers, the former in theatrical penthouse apartments and gated developments, the latter in windowless dorms.
continued...
This is also the place where the contemporary city is finally acknowledged as a theme park. These are, as Koolhaas points out, resorts more than cities. It is a land of superlatives: the tallest, the biggest, the most expensive. Lush golf courses and ski slopes in the desert, the highest skyscrapers, the most luxurious shopping centres, gargantuan hotels all looking like somewhere else, some other time. There is no room for the ordinary.
The Gulf has become a magnet for architecture's superstars. But most of the building is done by local architects imitating western trends or attempting to inject Islamic motifs, and by huge western engineering firms. Unlike in Europe and the US, where the iconic tower is the preserve of an architectural elite, in the Gulf it has become the default formal language, almost a vernacular. Al Manakh (the title is a play on guidebook and the word's Arabic meaning, "climate") is never patronising towards what is emerging. Koolhaas makes no distinction between avant-garde and commercial, and enthusiastically analyses the work of the faceless international bureaux of masterplanners and engineers who are building this new Babel.
Nor is this survey selectively blind. Corruption, hypocrisy, inequality, unsustainability are all interrogated here. There is even a letter criticising Koolhaas for getting involved with a competition to build a new HQ for Gazprom. This is an unconventional architecture book but, as Koolhaas writes, architects are in a unique position of needing to understand the sociology, finance, politics and culture of the places in which they build. They rarely use that knowledge for anything beyond building. When an architect like Koolhaas applies it elsewhere, the result should be compulsory reading.
Block this user
Are you sure you want to block this user and hide all related comments throughout the site?
Archinect
This is your first comment on Archinect. Your comment will be visible once approved.