AT THE CENTRE OF THE WORLD

Words  ::  Andrée Iffrig // Images  ::  Gerry O’Leary - arabianEye.com

There is an audible gasp from the audience when Yahya Jan announces the preliminary building approval process takes all of two weeks in Dubai. It’s a paperless system, with approvals conducted online. Jan’s audience is a sophisticated group of people from the development and design communities in Calgary, movers and shakers in their own right, but a two-week approval process is beyond their ken.Jan, vice president and design director with international architecture, engineering and interior design firm NORR , is in Calgary by invitation of the City’s Planning Department and the Calgary Economic Development Authority. Local NORR affiliate Poon McKenzie Architects (PMA) is playing host to Jan, who has won numerous international design competitions and been responsible for designing billions of dollars of new construction. Dressed in black Nehru suit, his voice low and steady, Jan is a foil for the dazzling architectural images he has come to share with Western Canadian audiences.
His message is simple: there is a place for iconic buildings in every city. Eliminate these, Jan says, and you end up with an urban landscape as boring as toast. As the photos of Dubai illustrate, there is nothing mundane about recent construction in that city. From landmarks like the 52-storey Emirates Towers, a NORR building completed in 2000, to the current erection of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill’s design for the 166 storey Burj Dubai, the city is setting a blistering pace when it comes to signature architecture.

Dubai?Centre of the World
Jan’s opening slide shows Dubai at the midpoint of a series of concentric circles, indicating its proximity to major centres in Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. Two to three billion people live within an 8 hour flying radius of the city. Its central location explains the reason for its spectacular growth, abetted by a combination of marketing hype, astute planning and oil money.
“Dubai has always been a trading hub,” says Jan. “It fronts the Arabian Gulf with 65 kilometres of waterfront. Dubai Creek, where redevelopment first began, is the original city centre. In the 1960’s, it was mostly low-rise, courtyard-type housing.” From modest beginnings, the city has grown rapidly, averaging 10 per cent per year. In the 12 years since Jan arrived in Dubai, its population has more than doubled to 1.5 million people, a middle class is emerging, and gradually society is becoming more liberal.
The city’s location at the heart of an international travel network makes it a popular holiday destination, and a mecca for new investment and business opportunities. Add to this the fact there are no income taxes or trade unions, and its appeal to global development interests is clear.
Last year, 60 residential towers were completed in Dubai. There was a fear that the market couldn’t support all these new units; instead it was discovered there were too few. The downside to this development is an inflationary economy, dramatically increased land values and ever-present construction pollution.
The city’s master planning follows a successful formula with iconic design as a focal point. Under the aegis of a master developer, usually a senior government minister, a parcel of land equivalent to a small city is designed. Architectural firms like NORR are hired to prepare these plans and create guidelines. Parcels of land are then sold off to individual developers.
It is not uncommon for the master developer to develop one or two iconic buildings by way of kick-starting development in a new area. NORR-designed icons include the Emirates Towers along Sheikh Zayed highway, and the Al Fattan Marine Towers, residential high-rise towers in the Marina area. These icons are relentlessly marketed to attract further development to the area.

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