If it weren’t too much trouble, I’d rummage through my paper archives – paper agglomeration – and dig up a roundtable interview I did in the early 2000s for the magazine I edited at the time. A number of local, meaning Chicago, architects gathered in a meeting room and I recorded their conversation, publishing an edited version. One of the participants was Adrian Smith.
That came to mind in the shadow of the Buji Khalifa in Dubai on the last day of February.
As an architect with HOK, Smith designed the Burj Khalifa (burj = tower). One day I will dig up the interview, to see whether he mentioned it. I’m not sure of the timing, but HOK might have been in discussions for the commission at that very moment, since construction started in 2004. Regardless, quite a thing. A signal achievement for Smith, whatever you think of very tall buildings, and not just for its height, but for its elegant stacking effect.
Dubai is eager to point out that the Buji Khalifa is currently the tallest manmade structure in the world (2,722 feet), taller than any poser in East Asia or obscure TV tower in North Dakota or behind the former Iron Curtain. For casual visitors, two observation decks are advertised, and no doubt there are even more expensive, unadvertised options, including for the rarefied few, going to the very top.
The ordinary tourist deck is at a lower level (floors 124-125) than the one at a significant premium (floor 148), which offers welcome refreshments (coffee and dates), access to a lounge and – mostly importantly – no waiting around in line to get in.
The Burj Khalifa is popular. You will wait in line if you pick the ordinary deck — about 30 minutes in my case — and you’ll see a spot of overselling on the way.
It wasn’t the waiting itself that was irritating, but the fact I always sensed that the elevators were going to be around the next corner, only to be wrong a half-dozen times. But I’m being churlish. All that grouchiness vanished as soon as I got on the elevator — which was a straight shot up to the deck, no changing cars necessary — and especially as soon as I reached the view.
Looking down at the Dubai Mall, and the massive nearby fountain, which erupts periodically with a height of its own.
Behind the Dubai Mall (from my vantage).
Next to the Dubai Mall.
I started losing track of directions. Dubai spreads out in a number of them.
Emaar being a major real estate developer in the region, controlled by this fellow, autocrat of Dubai.
Burj Khalifa, opened in 2010, was one of its projects, along with the Dubai Mall. To judge by how often the name Emaar appears on large buildings in Dubai, I’d guess it and legions of guest workers built most of modern Dubai as well.