They say that about a quarter of the world's construction cranes are in Dubai. This small city-state on the southern coast of the Persian Gulf is, under its hard-charging ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, in the throes of an epic building boom. Hundreds of skyscrapers are rising in the barren desert landscape. Highways, bridges, shopping malls, marinas, hotels, and a new metro system being built, day and night, by 25,000 men — all this is coming together right now. It's like stepping inside a huge Andreas Gursky photograph.
If it's a bubble, it isn't popping yet. Who's buying? Sun-loving Brits; shopaholic Russians; American condo flippers; European and Asian expatriates settling in for the long haul; and not least, wealthy Arabs from neighboring countries who are drawn to Dubai's fast-paced cosmopolitan mix and its dash of openly tolerated alcohol.
The race is on for citations in the Guinness Book of Records. From my balcony at the luxe Grosvenor House hotel, I can gaze out over the water to Palm Island, one of several fanciful creations made out of landfill that are etching immense recognizable shapes into the sea. Visible from space, the artificial island makes Spiral Jetty look like a warm-up exercise for Land Art.
Most of the superlatives here involve verticality. Nearby is the Princess, "the tallest residential tower in the world." In the distance, past the office parks of "Media City" and "Internet City," rises the iconic Burj Al Arab, the "the tallest all-suite hotel in the world" and "the world's largest hotel built on a man-made island." Shaped like a sailboat and equipped with a fleet of Rolls Royces and a cantilevered helicopter pad, Dubai's answer to the Eiffel Tower also boasts "seven-star" amenities, such as three hundred items on the room service menu, luggage hand packed by a butler, and an indoor submarine ride to restaurant built around a circular aquarium. The city's ultimate architectural statement is the Burj Dubai; predicted to be "the world's tallest human-built structure," its surprisingly sleek skeleton already dominates the skyline. From my plane as we were descending I could see its tip piercing through the clouds.
It is not the camel's milk vanilla smoothie that brings me here, although that tasty breakfast treat may be reason enough to visit. I'm here for Art Dubai, an international art fair (formerly the Gulf Art Fair) that is linked to the Global Art Forum, a program of high-minded debates on cultural issues. These events, from March 17 to 21, are supposed to make Dubai a destination for the globetrotting art-world elite. And because of intense curiosity about the cultural projects on the drawing board for the United Arab Emirates, here they all are. The visitors include MoMA director Glenn Lowry and Tom Krens of the Guggenheim, who was recently relieved of his executive duties to focus solely on the Guggenheim satellite in Abu Dhabi.
