January 4, 2010
Another Boom-Era Artifact Opens
Last month, everyone was talking about Las Vegas’s CityCenter, the $8.5 billion, 18-million-square-foot hotel-and-entertainment complex that now seems like the last gasp of a rapidly-receding era of starchitect cache and real-estate hubris. Well, not quite the last gasp—this morning another emblem of aughties excess officially opened in the UAE: Adrian Smith and SOM’s Burj Dubai–the […]
Last month, everyone was talking about Las Vegas’s CityCenter, the $8.5 billion, 18-million-square-foot hotel-and-entertainment complex that now seems like the last gasp of a rapidly-receding era of starchitect cache and real-estate hubris. Well, not quite the last gasp—this morning another emblem of aughties excess officially opened in the UAE: Adrian Smith and SOM’s Burj Dubai–the world’s tallest building!–rising 160-plus stories above a city-state that is now reeling from plummeting property values and crippling debt.
Related: In 2007, Stephen Zacks took a look at the serious ambitions behind Dubai’s insane rate of development in “Beyond the Spectacle.”
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