Dubai: Self-help for those wanting to build a 21st century city

Shumon Basar

Origin: Static Issue 04
Content: Text/Images

“Shiny, new, over-scaled, scaleless, pompous, obscene, tasteless, but very real, Dubai is Utopian without ever using the word. It’s visionary, but without the annoying obligation to be revolutionary.”

- A version of this text was originally published in Tank magazine, May 2006.

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Contributors:

Shumon Basar is an editor at sexymachinery and Tank magazines; director of the newly established Curatorial and Cultural Practices initiative at the Architectural Association, is co-founder of the curatorial/design group Newbetter and teaches at the Royal College of Art. He has written for Art Review, Blueprint, Domus and Modern Painters, and is co-editor of Did Someone Say Participate? An Atlas of Spatial Practice (MIT Press/Revolver). He is also undertaking a PhD  at the Goldsmiths Centre for Research Architecture, London.

Associated Links:

http://www.didsomeonesayparticipate.com
http://www.tankmagazine.com
http://www.nakheel.ae
http://www.emaar.com