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ABU DHABI ARCHITECTURE. SHEIKH ZAYYED MOSQUE

The architecture of Abu Dhabi has a lot of modern, expensive, high-tech buildings, but in the structure of its main shrine - the Sheikh Zayed Mosque, the United Arab Emirates have surpassed themselves.

The founder of the UAE, Sheikh Zayed, wishing to perpetuate the achievements of his people, to show the world the uniqueness of his country and culture, initiated the construction of the Grand Mosque. A massive project was conceived by the sheikh in the late 1980s, but too much time was spent on preparatory work and reconciliation of various differences.

Sheikh Zayed wanted to create some kind of structure, construction, device that could combine the cultural diversity of the Islamic world, the historical and modern values ​​​​of architecture and art.

Sheikh Zayed's vision of the mosque as a monumental architectural masterpiece meant that the building would be of historical significance to the entire Gulf region, so the Sheikh's government was the main stakeholder and main investor.

After a long competition for the best design of the mosque, from the moment the idea arose until 1989-1996, the winner was appointed, which was the well-known Syrian architect Yousef Abdelku (ARCHITECT: YUSEF ABDELKI, HALCROW). In 1990, the construction of the complex began, the main manager of which was the well-known British company Halcrow in the UAE.
The mosque, located between Mussafah and Makta bridges, is clearly visible at the entrance to the capital of the United Arab Emirates, as if an oriental fairy tale grows out of the hot sands of the Rub al Khali desert. The construction of the mosque was finally completed in 2009, although the official opening took place in the holy month of Ramadan 2007. A year later, the country's Ministry of Culture and Tourism announced that the entrance to the mosque would be open not only to Muslims, but also to representatives of other faiths.

In the architecture of the mosque, the influence of Persian, Moorish and Indian architecture of the Mughal period is noticeable. The mosque architecture was directly influenced by the Badshahi Mosque in Lahore (Pakistan) and the Hassan II Mosque in Casablanca (Morocco).

The exterior of the dome and the plan of the mosque are inspired by Badshahi and imbued with the spirit of Persian, Mughal and Moorish design. The arches of the mosque are made in a typical Moorish style, and the minarets are in the classical Arabic style.

The white color is the main color in the architecture of the mosque, and it is not accidental, as it is a symbol of purity, reflects the uniqueness and beauty of Islamic architecture.
The Sheikh Zayed Mosque is one of the ten largest mosques in the world and is the largest mosque in the United Arab Emirates, it covers an area of ​​22 thousand square meters. meters.
The mosque has 82 domes of various sizes in the traditional Moroccan style, covered with white marble mosaics. The main dome of the Grand Mask is the largest of its kind, according to statistics from the Turkish Research Center for Islamic History and Culture.

Slender minarets on the four sides of the mosque, which were created using marble from the quarries of Macedonia, near the ancient city of Stibera. grow out of a powerful portal. From the same marble, Roman copies of Greek sculptures were created and Diocletian's palace in Croatian Split was reconstructed.

The courtyard of the mosque, the entire space of which is covered with a marble pattern, is the largest in the world in terms of its size and the most beautiful in terms of the uniqueness of mosaic and inlay works.

Jonathan Speirs, the architect who created the mosque's unique lighting system based on the Islamic religious lunar calendar, where the moon became the inspiration and unifying design element, said:
“... We wanted to show that just as the moon affects the ebb and flow in the same way, it also affects the building of the mosque. The idea was to create lighting that would make the building glow with a sparkling white light, like a full moon, but with the effect of clouds drifting slowly towards Mecca…”

The poetics of the mosque is based on the image of the full moon, on the face of which bluish-gray clouds float. The lighting system changes the appearance of the building in accordance with the changes in the lunar cycle, slowly flowing around the minarets and domes. The change in color of the mosque occurs gradually, growing every two nights, until the moon, bathed in cold white light, turns one evening to a deep, mysterious and majestic blue.

Carpet: The floor of the main prayer hall is covered with the world's largest hand-woven Persian carpet, designed by Iranian artist Ali Khaliji.
The carpet is woven in Iran and 1200 artisans worked on its manufacture for 2 years. 35 tons of wool and 12 tons of cotton were used in the work.

Chandeliers: Hanging from the domes almost to the floor are seven huge chandeliers brought in from Germany, Austria and glassworks in Italy. The largest chandelier is 10 meters in diameter and weighs approximately 9 tons. It is suspended from the main dome of the mosque and is considered the largest in the world.

Materials: A variety of colors and qualities of marble, gems and other natural building materials was achieved by delivery from various countries: Italy, Germany, Morocco, Pakistan, India, Turkey, Malaysia, Iran, China, Great Britain, New Zealand, Greece and the United Arab Emirates.

Objects of art: The mosque houses a rich library, which contains a collection of books and publications on a number of Islamic disciplines: sciences, arts,
civilization, calligraphy, a collection of coins and some rare publications that are more than 200 years old. This literature reflects the diversity of the Islamic world, and the collection also includes material in other languages, including Arabic, English, French, Italian, Spanish, German, and Korean.

Sheikh Zayed was buried on the territory of the mosque, in a separate small mausoleum.
Visiting Conditions: Visitors must wear modest, loose-fitting long-sleeved clothing, long skirts and trousers, women must have a headscarf to cover their heads (provided at the entrance). Shoes must be removed before entering.

Visitors will be forgiven to stay only in the places of the mosque allowed to visit, not to touch the Koran and other architectural elements inside the prayer hall, smoking and eating are prohibited.
Admission fee: free
Opening hours (tourist visits):
Saturday-Thursday: 09:00-11:30, 13:30-15:30, 16:30-18:00, 18:45-19:30, 20:30-21:45
On Friday, the mosque is closed to tourists.
Friday: 16:30-18:00, 18:45-19:30, 20:30-21:45
Zayed Mosque website: http://www.szgmc.ae/

Contemporary architecture

The United Arab Emirates is a young state, whose age - 40 years old - seems infantile by the standards of history. In the pre-oil era, large families who lived in one-story adobe houses with palm leaf roofs survived on fishing and the pearl trade. Since the beginning of oil exports in the 1950s, along with foreign investment, reinforced concrete frame architecture, the so-called international style architecture, came to Arab settlements. Gradually, small settlements on the shores of the bay began to develop into cities - economic centers inhabited not only by indigenous people, but also by foreign specialists.

The number of expatriates increased every year, and the demand for residential urban architecture, which has all the signs of comfortable European housing, grew accordingly. Numerous foreign companies began to develop the economic space of the young state, building multi-storey office buildings. The formation of a modern urban environment required an appropriate architecture that only the Western model of an industrial city could offer: the Muslim world did not have such a resource. Such large capitalist centers as Chicago and New York were taken as the standard.
Western architects who came to the Arabian Peninsula used their usual methods of construction in a completely different cultural environment and climatic conditions. The high-rise towers literally growing out of the sand seem like a mirage in the reality of the Arab world. The Crystal Palace of Joseph Paxton, where the frame system was first used, having gone through a series of evolutionary turns, took the form of a skyscraper soaring up and ended up in the Middle East, in the middle of the desert.

Many superlative definitions can be applied to the characterization of the city of Dubai: the largest in the United Arab Emirates, the fastest growing, the most ambitious; there are not only the tallest skyscrapers in the world and the largest artificial islands, but their number is higher than in any other city in the world. This place owes such an abundance of extremes to the policy of the sheikhs of the emirate and the influx of money from oil exports in the 70s of the last century.

Dubai stretches along the coast of the Persian Gulf, sandwiched between water and desert sands, it develops along the Gulf and deep into it thanks to the creation of a series of artificial islands. The main transport artery of the city is Sheikh Zayed Street - a wide, powerful avenue that connects all areas of the city.
As in the sixties, Western-style residential architecture is being built for foreign specialists from Europe and America, while the locals themselves prefer, following traditions, to live in low-rise buildings with large families. Such differentiation defines the appearance of the city, where areas of skyscrapers rise sharply above the mass of the same type of native Arab villas.
Planted on local Arabian soil, the architecture of the western metropolis has no roots, high-rise areas remain a haven for tourists and expatriates, while also serving to attract foreign holidaymakers and professionals to the city. Accordingly, the function of the new sky-high buildings is determined by the needs of the urban environment: as in the 1960s, offices and apartments make up the bulk of the buildings.

National Bank of Dubai

One of the first landmark buildings in the style of modern high-rise architecture is the building of the National Bank of Dubai, built by NORR Group Consultants International Ltd (Toronto and Dubai) in 1998. The architect chosen was Uruguayan-born Canadian-based Carlos Ott, who designed the Bastille Opera in Paris. NORR Group is known as the creator of high-tech design: the use of high engineering technologies combined with clear silhouettes of minimalist forms. The bank building's design concept is inspired by the traditional Arabic dhow boat, whose shape also inspired the design of the Burj Al Arab hotel. The bank has an elegant profile, accentuated by the curvature of the mirror surface of the façade, which symbolizes the sail. The main mass of the structure forms the mast, and the lower one forms the body of the boat itself. The design of the building, rising on the banks of the Creek, refers us to the traditional culture of the indigenous people of Dubai.

Emirates towers

Dubai's aspirations, its ambitions to become the new commercial and financial center of the Middle East, were meant to symbolize the two so-called Emirates Towers. This project was also handled by NORR Group, designer Hazel Wong completed the project in 2000. Two triangular twin towers are located on Sheikh Zayed Street, the central and most significant street of the city. The complex consists of an office tower (355 meters) and a hotel tower (305 meters). Two slender silhouettes made of metal and glass, towering on a granite horizontally stepped base, become the focal point of the urban landscape. Each building has a triangle at the base, the side of which is 55.5 m, it is believed that this form has a sacred meaning in Islam. A pattern of equilateral triangles extends across the entire surface of the 54-story office tower, balancing the main structure to the north and the granite mass of the wall to the south. This geometric grid flows seamlessly into the pattern on the marble walls of the interior, the central core of which is 16 elevators serving four financial institutions in their respective areas of the tower. The lower part of the structure consists of an 8-storey glass drum. The triangle of the building is accentuated by a three-legged structure framing the circular lower floors. In the hotel tower, an 8-storey drum forms an atrium with a palm courtyard and a cafe.

Emirates towers

Investing money received from oil production in the development of tourism infrastructure, in 1993, Dubai Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum commissioned the Jumeirah Beach Resort project from the British company WS Atkins, consisting of the Jumeirah Beach Hotel, Wild Wadi Water Park and the crowning the entire complex of the luxurious Burj Al Arab hotel. Architect Tom Wright had to create a hotel that would become a symbol of Dubai, a hotel whose shape would be easy to remember and reproduce, like the silhouette of the Egyptian pyramids or the Eiffel Tower. As a starting point, echoing the idea of ​​the project of the National Bank of Dubai, the shape of a dhow boat with a billowing sail was chosen. It was decided to build the very structure of the "sail" on an artificial island at a distance of 280 meters from the coast, to which a bulk dam leads. This project marked the beginning of a string of artificial islands along the coast.

Burj Al Arab

The structure features a steel skeleton wrapped around a reinforced concrete tower. Forming a mast, the 2 wings of the structure diverge in a V-shape. The space between the wings is enclosed in fiberglass coated with Teflon. Curving, this surface forms a sail inflated by the wind and creates the highest atrium in the world inside (180 meters with the height of the structure itself 321 meters).

The material from which the sail is made is called dyneon, it is divided into 12 panels set vertically. During the day, this material creates a soft, milky color that penetrates the inside of the hotel, and at night, both inside and out, it emits light of different colors. A prominent feature of the Burj Al Arab is the cantilevered helipad, hotel guests have the privilege of reaching the apartments by helicopter.

The interior of Burj al-Arab critics scolded for excessive luxury, bordering on a complete lack of taste. Imitating the decoration of palace apartments, the design combines eastern and western cultural influences, but above all, it shows profligacy and wealth. The decoration uses precious stones, gilding, marble.

Burj al Arab, interior

Burj Khalifa

The landscape of modern Dubai is crowned by the tallest building in the world with a height of 828 meters - Burj Khalifa. Built on the shore of an artificial lake, together with the Dubai pier, the Burj Khalifa forms an ensemble of a new district of the city - Down Town. The Chicago School of Architecture has vast experience in building tall buildings, and a Chicago-based firm was selected to build the world's tallest tower.Skidmore, Ownings & Merrill LLP ( SOM). According to architect Adrian Smith, one of the most important things in designing the Burj Khalifa was to provide the most complete view of the landscape surrounding the tower. To do this, he creates a structure that has the shape of a letter in plan.Y. The architect was inspired by Lake Point Tower, built in 1968 in Chicago by Mies van der Rohe.

Lake Point Tower, Mies van der Rohe, Chicago

The reinforced concrete structure of the Burj Khalifa also has the shape of a trefoil in plan, each of the petals of which is symmetrically grouped around the central core, turning into a spire. From the base to the top, each of the three elements narrows in ledges in a spiral. There are 9 such ledges on each petal. This structure of the elements makes it possible to give greater stability to the skyscraper. A powerful stalactite cutting through the sky impresses with its scale, personifying the wealth and ambitions of a young country that is gaining strength.

View from the observation deck of Burj Khalifa

On the shores of the Persian Gulf in the last decade, a new area of ​​high-rise buildings is being built - Dubai Marina. Erected around an artificial backwater, clusters of skyscrapers are mostly residential apartments and hotels. As a rule, the plan of such a structure goes back to the plan of the World Trade Center in New York, where the space of the building was grouped around the central core of communications.
You will not see any innovative design solutions here, but each building has its own individuality: somewhere you can notice an interesting shape of the body of a skyscraper, such as at the Infinity Tower, or the designers decided to highlight their building with color (Marina crown hotel). However, Dubai Marina is also a quarter built for foreigners, where local natives can only be found in restaurants on the waterfront of the artificial bay.

Dubai Marina

Dubai Marina. Infinity Tower

The whole architecture of Dubai seems to exist in spite of the climate, natural topography, environment and culture of the local population. The city - the creation of human hands and scientific developments - is extensively advancing on the bay and the sands of the desert, creating its own artificial environment.
Reminiscent of the utopian projects of the era of modernism, Dubai is becoming a kind of city of a bright future, where a person can harness the elements of nature with the help of technological progress and finally create an urban paradise for himself on Earth. A paradise where the best, the most luxurious and the largest belongs to the local people and is their pride, a paradise that attracts crowds of tourists hungry for spectacles and those who want a comfortable life and well-paid work of expatriates.

Today, the United Arab Emirates has become one of the richest countries in the world, where ancient legends and fairy tales have come true, and amazing palaces, gardens, mosques with minarets rising into the sky have appeared on beautiful man-made islands.
Hundreds of amazing man-made structures have been built in different cities of the UAE, among which ten of the most outstanding examples of modern architecture can be distinguished.
1. Burj Khalifa


First place in the top ten amazing man-made structures in the UAE rightfully belongs to the world's tallest tower Burj Khalifa in Dubai, the construction of which was completed by the beginning of 2010. This 162-storey building with a height of 828 m got its name in honor of the President of the United Arab Emirates, Emir Abu- Dabi Khalifa ibn Zayd al-Nahyan. The skyscraper, which rises above the city like a giant sparkling stalagmite, houses numerous offices, the world's largest nightclub, a giant swimming pool, a mosque on the 158th floor, a magnificent five-star hotel, the interiors of which were created by Giorgio Armani.


2. Dubai Fountain


Next to the world's tallest tower, Burj Khalifa, there is another amazing man-made structure - the most beautiful and highest musical fountain in the world, whose height reaches 275 m. , in the light of which myriads of shining splashes scatter, creating fantastic images in the air.


3. Harbor of Jebel Ali


Among the striking man-made structures of the UAE is the world's largest artificial harbor, Jebel Ali, 40 minutes from Dubai, the creation of which initially pursued exclusively industrial purposes. Later, the harbor was "overgrown" with chic hotels, restaurants and cafes and became one of the most beautiful places in the country.


4 Emirates Park Towers


Emirates Park Towers twin towers. The second tallest building in the world is also located in Dubai - this is the Emirates Park Towers skyscraper, the twin towers, which house the luxurious Marriott International Hotel, a business center, conference rooms, restaurants, luxury boutiques, and a spa center.


5. Almas Tower


In the top ten amazing man-made structures in the UAE, not the last place is occupied by the Almas Tower, built in 2008, where the Dubai Diamond Exchange is located with numerous offices of well-known international companies, conference rooms, exclusive boutiques.


6. Parus Hotel in Dubai


The Parus Hotel in Dubai, a famous man-made structure on the shores of the Persian Gulf, is one of the marvels of modern architecture. The skyscraper of incredible beauty, from the windows of which a dazzling panorama of the bay opens, is a small state, securely isolated from the outside world, where, having fairly solid funds, you can safely spend your entire vacation in an atmosphere of fabulous oriental luxury.


7. Palm Islands in Dubai

A striking sight that can be seen with the naked eye from the moon, the man-made Palm Islands are three huge islands arranged in the shape of a date palm. The settlement of the miracle islands began in 2008, when the first hotel “Atlantis. The Palm. Currently, the Palm Islands have become a real oasis with luxurious gardens, luxurious hotels, and entertainment centers.


8. Jumeirah Mosque


One of the main man-made structures of the UAE is amazing - the Jumeirah Mosque, a unique example of modern oriental architecture. The monumental building was built and decorated according to the traditions of Islam, combined with modern technologies. The Jumeirah Mosque is open for free visits by representatives of various world faiths. The building is especially picturesque at night when the lights are on.


9. Ski Dubai


Indoor ski resort Ski Dubai. In the middle of the desert, among the hot sands of the Arabian Peninsula, there is the first and so far the only ski resort in the world! It is located in the Mall of the Emirates and occupies an area equal to three football fields. The indoor ski resort Ski Dubai has excellent slopes for snowboarders and skiers, lifts, an amusement park with snow grottoes, and restaurants. The resort maintains a stable temperature of -2°C, even when the outside world is in the 40-degree heat, special installations produce tens of thousands of tons of real snow every night.


10. Dubai Mall Aquarium


The largest aquarium in the world. The Dubai Mall is home to another amazing Guinness World Record-listed man-made structure - a giant aquarium the size of a three-story building with a volume of 10 million liters of water, which is home to a wide variety of marine life. Visitors can admire the bloodthirsty sharks, stingrays, sea urchins, octopuses, all kinds of jellyfish in their natural habitat, from a tunnel laid in the center of the Aquarium. Adults can take part in a risky attraction - diving with sharks, where experienced divers will help the daredevils not to get into trouble and stay alive.

April 20th, 2014

Today professional language on a professional topic. The modern architecture of the Emirates is one of the main tools for brainwashing tourists and investors around the world. People walk with their heads up on tall skyscrapers, take pictures, admire and some even say that Dubai is the leader of modern architecture! But they are wrong. The fact is that Dubai is a leader only in terms of the pace of construction and show-offs. Millions of square meters a year of shops, offices, housing, hundreds of kilometers of ideal roads, overpasses and interchanges, channels are being dug, islands are being poured, construction is in full swing, loot is being spent in tons. In such a turmoil, it is often not up to quality, you need to finish everything quickly, hand it over, sell it, hang noodles on everyone’s ears and start the next project. Any adequate architect will tell you that Holland, Germany, England, the USA and Canada make the highest quality, tasty and durable architecture, and everything else is far from them in this regard. But there is undoubtedly something to see, there will be 15-20 extra-class buildings in the whole city! By the way, they were designed by all the same Americans, Dutch, Germans, etc. ... The Arabs themselves, of course, have no knowledge, traditions and schools, so here everything is bought and bought by architects, builders are bought, design standards are bought, materials are bought, even time is bought, only money can't buy taste. If the customer has bad taste, then nothing will help, because there are so many ridiculous ridiculous glass sheds with turrets, columns, strange transitions and curlicues. In general, just in bulk, let's go!

Let's start with a building called "lakeside residence" I noticed it from afar when I was riding the subway. The façade is very interesting. There is a certain module that transforms into small and large squares, interrupting, then reappearing, this creates a beautiful effect of fragmentation and detail, but at the same time it does not visually fall apart due to the monochromatic materials. Partitioning that is not typical for Dubai, as it is more common either horizontal or vertical, or just a glass form.

There is a skyscraper "Diamond" nearby - one of the highest in the city, many people like it, somehow I was not impressed

Dubai metro stations are great. The more I wear them, the more I like them. Beautiful forms, tolerable quality of construction, cleanliness and, most importantly, functionality. Each metro station provides city residents with air-conditioned crossings over wide roads, free toilets, information boards, ATMs and shops. All this is separated from the turnstiles to the trains, respectively, available to any passer-by, behind the turnstiles there is only passage. The technology of the stations is very well thought out, convenient and logical.

"Infinity Tower" is the tallest "twisted" skyscraper in the world. Once the great Santiago Calatrava built a twisted skyscraper in the city of Malmö (Sweden), since then it has become fashionable to twist the volume of the tower relative to its base. I know at least four similar buildings, they differ in top, colors, degree of rotation, and some details, in my opinion, the coolest one turned out to be Calatrava in Sweden.

The main idea of ​​the Dubai skyscraper was that the top seemed to dissolve in the sky. It looked exactly like this on the computer model. In reality, it didn't work out very well. The border where the rooms end and the open roof begins is too clearly visible, the plates hang in the air too evenly and because of this the effect of unfinishedness is created, not dissolved.

Nevertheless, the building is very cool and spectacular, it's just a pity that it could potentially turn out a little better, if the main idea of ​​the authors did not fail.

There is a traffic circle nearby and the tower emphasizes this roundabout and looks very cool when you drive by.

And here is the famous hotel "Atlantis" on the Palm Jumeirah, one of the most expensive and pretentious in the world. The Arabs wanted to build a palace in the style of "Oriental Tale". Moreover, they never had palaces. Palaces were in Iran, Turkey (Byzantium), but not in Dubai. For the life of me, it reminds me of Stalin's skyscrapers in Moscow, with the proviso that the proportions of these skyscrapers are a thousand times more beautiful. The building is surprisingly out of proportion, huge symmetrical boulders of diabetic pink crown dozens of small emerald green turrets with incomprehensible decor. The arch saves the situation, its shape is beautiful, understandable and it gives airiness and splendor at the entrance. But in general, I don’t like the building at all, I don’t understand what everyone found in it.

Near the hotel, everyone takes pictures themselves, take pictures of their children, grandchildren and dogs. Haven't been photographed at Atlantis, haven't been to Dubai! In fact, these are the only signs of life there - the place is surprisingly dead. There is nothing to do there, they are not allowed into the hotel territory, there are no footpaths, there is no access to the sea, the embankment is just 10 kilometers of the same nothing. As a result, everyone takes pictures, looks at expensive cars and leaves.

The first line of skyscrapers in Dubai Marina, in general, is tolerable, but rustic in my opinion, but complex.

Next to the twisted skyscraper are these twin brothers. It looks like they were copied from a children's computer game. But to be honest, I like them, there is something fresh and funny in them.

Of course, the review would not be complete without the Burj Khalifa. It is simply beautiful, one of the most beautiful buildings in the city and in general in the world. By the way, it can be seen from anywhere in the city - it is convenient to navigate

The building has become so iconic that anything associated with it is considered a success. Any company that has made the design of at least a toilet or a chandelier in it boasts about it to the whole world. The view from the window, where the outlines of the tower are visible for a hundred kilometers in a haze, is considered the best and most expensive, not to mention those who are closer, if you have a friend who lives in Kalifa, this is already an indicator of your status)))

Well, I repeat once again that the tower looks much more impressive live than any photographs - come and see

Near Kalifa there are two buildings "Boulevard Plaza Tower" extremely simple in form, but they look great due to an interesting layout of glass and an interesting relative position.

But on the next street is this! No comment... Don't think that I don't like curlicues, columns and arches, in fact I love it much more than glass, iron and concrete, but modern architects have completely lost the ability to create beauty in classicism, there are isolated examples, but these are rather an exception...

How do you like a skyscraper in the form of Big Ben? It no longer prompts any thoughts, except for the author’s lack of imagination, conscience and own opinion. This is not a salad in the form of a hedgehog to make-ate and no, this nonsense will stand for decades. The most amazing thing is that after all, someone paid a lot of money for the project, someone drew and someone else approved ...

Or this.. What was going on in the architect's head, I can't even imagine.

There are buildings that are normal, just normal, which there is nothing to criticize for, but they don’t cause much awe either.

But so much soullessness in the stupidly solid glazing of the boxes, looking at such houses bothers you after 20 seconds.

This whole palisade of skyscrapers looks very strange, of course, there is no question of any context, every building here is being built as if in an open field, there is money - higher, no money - lower, the facades are all different, the colors are different, the styles are different, probably already has it makes sense to come up with a separate style in architecture, which will be called Arabic Kitsch.

Rolex Tower - a cool hole at the top, interestingly laid out glass, the shape of the building is extremely simple.

Index Tower is the handiwork of the greatest Norman Foster. A very non-standard building in all respects, an interesting facade with small details, in general a beautiful building but a bit gloomy.

And for dessert, the most delicious. This is the mosque of Abdulrahman Al Siddiq on the same Jumeirah palm tree. This is definitely the most beautiful object on artificial islands and one of the best in general in the city.

The uniqueness of this building is in its unconventionality. A new reading of religious architecture is becoming more relevant every day. The Catholics, in my opinion, went too far with this, but it was the first experience for the Arabs. The unconventional style of cubism-minimalism is a challenge that has developed over the centuries in style, I wonder how the parishioners themselves relate to it? But in the architectural sense, this is of course an experiment and an experiment that was 100% successful.

General form

A decorative wall made of glass panels with national patterns is moved away from the main wall and casts beautiful shadows on it - here it is, yummy architectural!

Probably soon there will be an underground parking of the next shopping center. In the meantime, I walk here and say hello to everyone!

Moral: People, shake the noodles out of your ears and take a sober look at the world! Dubai is a show city, completely unsuitable for life, especially for a Russian person. In places he is very beautiful, but all his beauty is so soulless and predictable, there is not a drop of romance and kindness in it. And when you admire the local achievements of architecture, keep in mind that building here is much easier and cheaper than in Russia, there is no complex centuries-old history, a scoop in the heads, winters and rains, difficult soils, earthquakes, narrow streets of a historical city and outright vandalism of citizens , with all this, there is a small territory of the country, a lot of money and, most importantly, the desire to invest it - you see the result yourself.

In this album, I wanted to tell you about good modern architecture in the Emirates.

It would seem that no one spares money, hundreds of new skyscrapers appear every year, the world's best architectural and construction companies are involved in the design and construction, in the Emirates there should be just a reserve of good modern architecture. Actually it is not.

You can't buy taste for money, so the Arabs continue to build up the desert with ridiculous boxes from computer games. I did not manage to find really interesting, beautiful and modern buildings, so the album turned out to be very small.

The best thing I managed to see is the 160-meter Capital Gate tower in Abu Dhabi. The developers of ADNEC and the architects of the RMJM project submitted a joint application to the Guinness Book of Records for recognition of the skyscraper as the most inclined building in the world. The 35-story building will lean 18 degrees off its axis, almost 4 times more than the famous Leaning Tower of Pisa (Leaning Tower of Pisa), which currently leans 3.97 degrees.

Very interesting building O-14, unfortunately, did not have time to get to it. The O-14 tower is located on the shores of Business Bay, on the opposite shore of which rises the Burj Khalifa. The 21-storey office building stands out among the surroundings with its “perforated” facade: about 1,000 rounded openings of various diameters have been made in its 40 cm thick concrete outer layer. They are located in such a way as to promote natural ventilation and lighting of the building, while preventing overheating. Inside the concrete facade there is a second, glass one: a meter gap between them creates a “chimney effect” that provides natural cooling of the building.

The famous Burj Al Arab, one of the most luxurious hotels in the world, looks pretty good. The building stands in the sea at a distance of 280 meters from the shore on an artificial island connected to the land by a bridge. With a height of 321 meters, it was the tallest hotel in the world, but then, also in Dubai, the Rose Tower Hotel, 333 meters high, opened in April 2008.

The construction of the hotel began in 1994; it opened to visitors on December 1, 1999. The hotel was built in the form of a dhow sail, an Arab ship. Closer to the top is a heliport, and on the other side is the Al-Muntaha restaurant (Arabic for the Highest), both supported by cantilever beams. For a luxury hotel, the architecture is very bold. But inside everything is as it should be - gypsy baroque. Architect - Atkins Middle East.