Mecanoo   United Arab Emirates   The Dutch firm Mecanoo, under the leadership of Francine Houben, has officially unveiled its design for a new museum currently under construction in Abu Dhabi’s Saadiyat Cultural District. Like rock formations, it presents geometric compositions such

Zaha Hadid Architects   United Arab Emirates   Inspired in the desert landscape surrounding the new headquarters of the environmental and waste management company Bee’ha in Sharjah, the different elements of the program – lobby, auditorium, visitors’ center and gallery, offices and cafeteria – ar

Christian Kerez   United Arab Emirates   A bundle of slender metal diagonals breaks the traditional hierarchy of pillars and beams, altogether altering the Cartesian space inside the prism by offering fragmented views...

Santiago Calatrava   United Arab Emirates   A series of mobile wings makes the huge host pavilion look like a bird in flight, a reference to the important role played by falconry in uniting the various tribes that formed the country.

WOHA Architects   United Arab Emirates   An exuberant jungle shows how it is possible for architecture to embrace nature in combating the effects of climate change in cities and creating pleasurable ecosystems. The pavilion is powered by solar energy alone, and the dense vegetation lining t

Yuko Nagayama & Associates   United Arab Emirates   With simultaneous references to Japanese Asanoha and Islamic arabesque patterns, a three-dimensional openwork represents the meeting of two ancient decorative traditions.

MMBB Ben-Avid JPG.ARQ   United Arab Emirates   A basin of water and a membrane of stretched textile in a powerful metal framework manage to create an atmosphere that draws attention to the Amazon jungle’s water resources.

JKMM   United Arab Emirates   A snow-white prism contains a curved cavity lined in wood and bathed in brightness by a generous skylight, in an abstract echo of the lush landscapes that abound in the Nordic country...

OOS Architekten   United Arab Emirates   Behind a mirror facade that has the effect of magnifying Switzerland’s national flag is. an immersive installation that transports the visitor to a sea of fog high up in the Alpine mountains...

Es Devlin Studio Veretec UK   United Arab Emirates   A sheaf of stalks of cross-laminated timber forms the scenographic screen on which to project a sampling of cyberpoetry that results from online interactions of users.

Grimshaw Architects   United Arab Emirates   A cyclopean canopy structure serves as a collector of the dry climate’s scant rainfall, and at the same time as a contraption for the trapping and harnessing of solar radiation.

AGI Architects   United Arab Emirates   The pavilion’s premises flank a large void that serves to give continuity to the public circulation route, conceived as a meeting place under the protection of an ethereal roof structure.

Foster + Partners   United Arab Emirates   The proposals for new transport models are presented in a building of careened forms with a laminated skin of reflecting stainless steel that prevents overheating...

Amann Cánovas & Maruri - Temperaturas Extremas   United Arab Emirates   Expo 2020 Dubai, themed 'Connecting Minds, Creating the Future' and counting over 200 participants, kicked off with a ceremony almost a year after it was supposed to, owing to the Covid-19 pandemic, and welcomes the public from 1 October to 31 March

Oualalou + Choi   United Arab Emirates   The Moroccan contribution to the next World Expo seeks to demonstrate how traditional construction systems have the potential to give rise to more sustainable development models. The world’s largest facade of rammed earth encompasses twenty-two recta

Adjaye Associates   United Arab Emirates   Located in the emirate of Sharjah, The Africa Institute is the only organism in the Gulf that engages in studying and documenting the culture of African people and their relationship with Arab countries. For its new headquarters, scheduled for comple

Foster + Partners   United Arab Emirates   Close to the airport, 10 kilometers from the center of Sharjah, stands this two-floor building by the British firm Foster + Partners. Overhangs 15 meters wide shade the facades against the sun, and aluminum lattices varying in density filter solar ra

OFFICE Kersten Geers David Van Severen   United Arab Emirates   This set of gardens was designed and built for the 11th Sharjah Biennial, directed by the Japanese curator Yuko Hasegawa. After developing a strategy to urbanize the existing heritage area of Sharjah, the design proposed a set of pavilions that compl

petrjanda/brainwork   United Arab Emirates   The firm of the Czech architect Petr Janda has won the competition to build a visitor center in the Al Wathba Wetland Reserve, located in the United Arab Emirates capital, where flamingos abound. The project seeks to make the building blend into the

Zaha Hadid Architects   United Arab Emirates   In the emirate’s skyscraper-filled Burj Khalifa district, Opus ME Dubai of the Meliá Hotels International chain is in a building that Zaha Hadid herself designed before dying in 2016. In a play of solids and hollows, opacity and transparency, the sch

Heatherwick Studio   United Arab Emirates   The studio was commissioned by Related Companies in 2015 to design a new residential project in Chelsea, Manhattan, at West 18th Street. The site is split in half by the High Line, the elevated public park, and called for an inventive solution that w

X Architects   United Arab Emirates   Distinguished with the 2019 Aga Khan Award for Architecture, the Wasit Wetland Center in the Emirate of Sharjah is a facility with a marsh, a visitor center, and points from which to birdwatch. The Dubai-based firm X-Architects, headed by Ahmed Al-Al

Zaha Hadid Architects   United Arab Emirates   The new headquarters of the environmental and waste management company Bee’ha in Sharjah – capital of one of the seven emirates in the UAE – is designed like an array of dunes within its desert environment, protecting an inner oasis. The design by Za

Expo 2020

The World Expo of 2020 has opened its doors. Already the web is flooded with night views of pavilions silhouetted against the excessive backdrop of Dubai. And proliferating alongside the myriad images are the words of a rhetoric which, while continui

Themed ‘Connecting Minds, Creating the Future,’ the first major international event ever to be held in the Middle East will until 31 March 2022 exhibit proposals for development that the participating nations have set up on the premises, in the spiri

The Economist   The jagged towers and palm-fringed walkways of the proposed Guggenheim Abu Dhabi (GAD) take their inspiration from the wooden sailing dhows that ply the waters of the Gulf and the funnel-shaped wind towers, known as barjeel, built to bring natural ve

The Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi (DCT Abu Dhabi) has announced that the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi is on track for 2025 completion. Set to be part of a thriving community of cultural institutions in Abu Dhabi, Guggenheim Abu Dhabi is the l

Expo 2020 officially opened in Dubai on 1 October. Like so many other premium celebrations, it is being held a year later than it was supposed to be, delayed by Covid-19. Themed ‘Connecting Minds, Creating the Future,’ the first major international e

The Expo in Dubai kicked off on 30 September with a ceremony, and welcomes the public from 1 October to 31 March 2022. The event is expected to bring in some 25 million visitors. Video Map

The firm founded in London by the late Zaha Hadid and now headed by Patrik Schumacher has in the skyscraper district of Dubai just completed Hotel Opus ME, one of those buildings whose hollows perhaps cost more than their solid parts. Contorted to th

The team formed by Atxu Amann, Andrés Cánovas, and Nicolás Maruri (Temperaturas Extremas Arquitectos) is the winner of the competition for the privilege of building Spain’s pavilion at the Universal Exhibition of 2020, to be held in Dubai. The winnin

The petrodollar-funded construction of huge cultural complexes is a strategy used by Gulf countries to craft themselves a recognizable and influential image.

Jean Nouvel’s most awaited building of the last years, the Louvre Abu Dhabi, finally opens this coming 12 November through what promises to be a ceremony of great political substance. Originally programmed for the year 2012, the project has been swam

Paulo Martins Barata   ‘Back on the Chain Gang,’ the song by Chrissie Hynde written after the collective overdose of the British band The Pretenders, would be the perfect metaphor for the endemic schizophrenia of Dubai’s property market. Every year the emirate hosts ‘Citys

Everyone knows about the paradoxes inherent in the idea of a glazed skyscraper in the Persian Gulf, so it is not surprising to hear of solutions such as those that have been developed by Aedas, in collaboration with Arup, in the Al Bahar Towers, two

El estudio Ehrlich Architects, con sede en Los Ángeles, ha ganado el concurso internacional para diseñar el complejo donde se ubicará el futuro parlamento de los Emiratos Árabes Unidos, que estará situado en uno de los mayores bulevares de Abu Dhábi.

En la isla de Saadiyat de Abu Dhabi se ha presentado el proyecto del Museo Nacional Zayed, diseñado por el estudio de Norman Foster para el nuevo distrito de la cultura del emirato, que contará también con sedes del Guggenheim y del Louvre, según pro

La primera ciudad carbón neutral del mundo estrena institución: el Masdar Institute, una universidad dedicada al desarrollo de tecnologías sostenibles. Para dar ejemplo, toda la energía utilizada procede de un gran huerto solar que además de cubrir l

Luis Fernández-Galiano   El Golfo Pérsico ha devenido un golfo de marcas: marcas de récord y marcas de lujo. Dubai ha levantado el rascacielos más alto del mundo, Abu Dhabi está construyendo el más colosal conjunto de museo del momento y Qatar albergará el Mundial de 2022 co

El País   Luis Fernández-Galiano   The real estate crisis that led to the financial collapse of the emirate of Dubai marks the end of an urban model; another of the Gulf emirates, Abu Dhabi, proposes an alternative model with Masdar, a new city with no emissions and no waste.

Rem Koolhaas   El libro ‘Al Manakh’, promovido desde Dubai, describió en 2007 el panorama de un Golfo en plena fiebre inmobiliaria;‘Al Manakh 2’, bajo el patrocinio de Abu Dhabi y editado de nuevo por Archis, regresa a la zona para documentar su crisis actual.

Stefan Behling   En el desierto de Abu Dhabi se levanta la primera fase de Masdar, una iniciativa promovida por la compañía estatal de la energía y diseñada por el estudio británico de Norman Foster.

Con un espectacular despliegue de fuegos artificiales y tras sólo seis años de obras se ha inaugurado la torre más alta del mundo (828 metros oficiales). La anteriormente conocida como Burj Dubai fue rebautizada para la ocasión como Burj Khalifa en h

El emirato de Abu Dhabi está decidido a mantener el liderazgo internacional en la producción de energía; la gran placa fotovoltaica proyectada en la ciudad carbon neutral de Masdar City sustituirá al petróleo y a los combustibles fósiles.