: Dubai is certainly the inevitable place for the realization of Koolhaas’ ideas. It is by now the capital of an economic and political New World Order. A city-state without income taxes, labor laws, or elections, it is ruled by a corporate oligarchy of hereditary rulers, accountable only to themselves and their investors. Quite a model for the global future. Built up rapidly over the past few years on the wealth gotten from the world’s greed for oil—and more recently as an unregulated sanctuary for cash—it has no depth of history or indigenous culture, no complexity, no conflicts, no questions about itself, no doubts, in short, nothing to stand in the way of its being shaped into the ultimate neo-liberal Utopia.
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precisely for the same reason it has no bearing on the rest of the world. It may ultimately prove to be an XXL Las Vegas for the world....
i can say that i'm amazed and especially pleased that the chain-smoking wild-haired renegade artist/architect that we met at my school in the 80s has become such an erudite and fearless critic. then he was teaching us colored pencil technique but now leb's the only one i'm finding offering this kind of real and thoughtful criticism.
this is how good sorkin used to be in the village voice days. actually, better!
Dubai = Palace of Versailles 2.0
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