on “dubai-bashing”

rholmes — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 11:00:12 +0000

Todd Reisz and Rory Hyde, who are writing about research from Al Manakh at the Huffington Post, describe what they call the phenomenon of “Dubai-bashing”, and argue that the phenomenon reflects Western insecurities more than it does actual conditions in Dubai. While I have no doubt that Dubai is indeed a more complex entity than the articles they briefly quote allow (Reisz and Hyde’s most recent article in this series, “Two Songs, an Idol, and Some Money Transfers”, is one small piece of evidence of that), I’ll admit that I finished this article unconvinced that the bashing Dubai has received (and it has undoubtedly received a bashing) is really so unwarranted, or solely a product of what Koolhaas calls “[the need to] maintain and restore our own confidence in terms of the crisis we are now facing”. It is true that the financial crisis has as many roots in New York and London as in Dubai (easy evidence: foreclosed homes in the States), that Dubai is not exactly the only place in the world which abuses immigrant laborers (look to the States, again), and that it’s always worth examining one’s own errors before pointing out those belonging to others, but it’s not clear to me why those things, even cumulatively, make criticism of Dubai wholly dismissible as a product of a collective desire to “get [ourselves] through a hard spell”.

Regardless, you ought to read their argument for yourself.

on koolhaas at ecological urbanism

rholmes — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 14:46:58 +0000

I’m afraid that this cartoon is exactly right: Koolhaas’ keynote address at the Ecological Urbanism conference was a joke (on the attendees?). But, then, a very cynical person might say that this is typical, rather than atypical, of his recent work. Fortunately some of the other presentations were much better.

mammoth » rem-koolhaas

on “dubai-bashing”

on koolhaas at ecological urbanism