Architecture’s Final Frontier
Posted by Lisa Portes on 7/22/2009
Lisa Portes is the director of Ski Dubai.
Gordon Gill is a rock star. That’s all I want to say. Though he’d brush it off with the most charming humility, but… um… just look at this building. Gordon is the “Gill” in Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture, the guys who’ve essentially designed Dubai. Yes, that’s an exaggeration, but I like to say it and it’s not far from the truth: Adrian Smith, while still at Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, designed the Burj Dubai: the tallest and arguably most famous building in the world right now. Adrian and Gordon formed Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture in 2006 and, if you go to their site, you will be inspired. That’s all there is to say. You will feel as though you’ve been thinking small for a long time, your mind will inhale and expand, and you may consider (like I did) quitting your job and getting Gordon’s coffee just to follow these guys around the world, specifically to Dubai.
Ski Dubai considers the whole Dubai question: what does this city very suddenly built on the desert mean to the idea of “city,” to location, and indeed (per Laura Jacqmin’s recent post) to the very idea of home. Can it be possible to jack up a world class city just like that? It can’t be safe, can it? What about the workers? What about the land itself? Is this a mirage?
But you can’t dispute the architecture. You can’t deny the value of the architectural ambition, and I don’t just mean the buildings. In Dubai, we are witnessing the first big architectural revolution since Louis Sullivan took advantage of the blank slate of post-fire Chicago and invented architectural modernism. Quoting Ski Dubai’s architect, Perrin: “You can’t just build (…) the final frontier for an architecture community that has finally woken up from its collective coma of irrelevant, uninspired building without fucking up some flowers along the way!”
And yet, Gordon Gill cautions us to be wary. Thanks to Ms. Martha Lavey and Ms. Erica Daniels, Gordon came to speak with the cast of Ski Dubai early this week. He said that Dubai is indeed a playground for architects, but that, despite the Sheik’s 2006 call for all buildings to be sustainable, there is no measure or standard for what sustainability means or entails and that the building has all happened very, very fast. Gordon suggests that the economic correction the city is experiencing due to the global financial downturn may provide a much-needed period of reflection. After a decade-long frenzy of building, construction in Dubai has come to a virtual halt. Meanwhile, in Abu Dhabi construction has begun for the Masdar Headquarters, designed by Mr. Rockstar Gill himself. Masdar will be the world’s first positive energy building: that means that the building creates more energy than it consumes. Perhaps the slow down in Dubai will allow time for the Sheik and his posse of architects to create a truly wondrous city of the future, one in which the buildings both dazzle the eye and grace the earth.