UAE – Dubai

Malls, money and more malls. Oh, and the world’s tallest building. Welcome to Dubai.

On my way to Europe, I stopped off in the United Arab Emirates and was able to get a day to see Dubai.

There are some disturbing aspects, as it seems like some sort of dystopian city that is written about in sci-fi novels, with a moneyed elite wandering about while people are imported in to do all the work. (Though remember that we have aspects of that as well — since most of our food is picked, processed and prepared by immigrant laborers).

There are some obvious parallels to Vegas. Dubai is massive, glitzy, hot and growing, dotted with excessive use of water, garish buildings and simulated “experiences” including the famous ski slope inside a mall. Of course, it’s also Vegas without the gambling and free liquor.

I was budgeting, so I skipped the glitzy area along the coast and stayed in downtown Dubai, with all the temporary residents. I also wanted to try the new metro, and since the weather was unexpectedly comfortable – about 38 Celsius, or 100 Fahrenheit – I walked the few blocks to my hotel. The metro is new, spotless, cheap and seemingly used exclusively by Western tourists and ex-pat temporary workers.

I mainly wanted to see the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest everything – tower, structure, building, etc. From a distance, it’s rather elegant, almost lovely, offering a modernized, flower-inspired version of the Sears Tower’s stacked rods. Tapered cylindrical forms rise ever higher.

But it’s precisely its enormous height that makes it seem so incongruous, and ultimately, frivolous. Its primary reason for being seems to be that they wanted to prove they could build it — and to make sure no one tried to top them, they built it substantially taller than anything being planned, completely out of scale to its surroundings and far beyond its own utility.

Yes, skyscrapers are meant to amaze, and their size grew as our ambitions and technology expanded. But they also did so in a tacit system of one-upmanship, with evolving aesthetic standards and the surrounding cityscape taken into consideration. The Burj Khalifa shatters that gradualist approach. When it was completed, it was almost two-thirds taller than the second highest building in the world!

The views from the top are impressive, though it was very hazy the day I was there. I know this looks like an architectural model and not an actual landscape, but that’s fitting, since much of Dubai feels like an ant farm populated by humans.

The building itself has a fair amount of grace, but not enough to offset its scale.

There, of course, is a mall next to it, some housing and other buildings styled to give a similarly sleek exterior. One of them faces the de riguer dancing fountains meant to outdo Vegas.

So Dubai made for a decent stopover, but I can’t imagine I would ever need to return.

I also stopped off in London for a day and was going to go see the big flotilla for the Queen, but it was 45 degrees, windy and “tipping down” rain, so I stayed in and watched it on TV instead. And anyway, she’s already waved at me (when I saw her in Toronto a couple of years ago).