The UAE as a Case Study

As an architect, wherever I travel I always find myself trying to understand the particular culture through its architectural landscape. The challenge for me here is I find traditional buildings in a foreign context interesting but often culturally impenetrable. Likewise, contemporary/globalist architecture does not speak to me. Somewhere between historic architecture and the glass tower — often a universal symbol of progress— lies the sweet spot for observing culture through architectural form. A first step for me to engage with a new place is to find commonalities. One way is through observing how an architect familiar with the locale represents that culture in their work through the medium of modernism. A mutual familiarity with the late twentieth-century modernist canon provides a sort of Rosetta Stone. I engage their work through the lens of modernism and can see their culture through their eyes. This translation and engagement were invaluable on my first visit to the United Arab Emirates in the fall of 2019.  

My first day brought me to the city of Sharjah on an architecture tour. In the early examples of modernism there, I began to find "relatables"—buildings that provided a bridge between Emirati culture and Western culture viewed through the perspective of modern architecture. One of the first buildings that spoke to me was the Cordoba Building Complex, otherwise known as the Bank Street Apartments, which were designed in the late 1970s. A heavy façade disguises the form of the building like a dishdasha or abaya wraps around its wearer. The curves of their façades feel like fabric protecting the interior inside its folds. Here one sees the physical representation of a local custom and approach in mitigating the harsh desert climate in the building’s concept and execution. Open lateral slits in the heavy façade create a horizontal rhythm in the vertical folds. These slits are column-less openings. The windows of the apartments are deeply recessed, like eyes peering out from the slits in a traditional burqa, a metallic-colored, embroidered cloth that protects the face from the desert sun and sands. The repetition of these buildings in series is fantastic. Slight variations in color express the buildings’ individuality while creating a powerful sinuous whole. Sun and shadow work together, unifying the group in contrast and delineation. Later in the day I was reminded of these buildings when I watched crowds shopping in the souks—each person insulated from the sun, anonymous yet unique in their cloak. This complex of buildings is an example of how good first-generation modernism retains its imagery of place while embracing an emerging and heroic architectural universality.  

Discoveries in mathematics, optics, astronomy, and science during the Islamic Golden Age (800 AD–1258 CE) are deeply embedded in Emirati culture. The geometric elegance in plan and elevation of the Al Ibrahimi Tower in Abu Dhabi, designed in the 1980s by Egyptian architect Farouk Al Gohary, is a solid example. The design is an Islamic idea expressed through a Western modern architecture idiom. Its form expresses a complexity through elegant mathematical abstraction, an ideal inherent in Islamic culture, craft, and art. Because of Islam’s prohibition against representations of God, Islamic craftsmen and artists became adept at representing divinity through abstraction and symbolism. In line with this representation, the spoken and written word became vessels for representing the infinite and timeless. This cultural paradigm is seen often but never more apparent than in a current building like Dubai’s Museum of the Future, a building literally made out of calligraphy. Through its structure and skin, the architecture itself becomes an invocation.  

The heart of Emirati culture is rooted in its Bedouin heritage. The changing dunes and shifting sand can be found in the sinuous lines of Arabic calligraphy and curves of the buildings previously mentioned. These are not the curves of Western art and architecture, but drawn from a deep cultural memory—a result of living as nomadic tribes. When one travels through the desert, like a sailor navigating the sea, the sky and rock outcroppings are the only constants against the expanse of sand. Two recent Abu Dhabi buildings represent these ideas abstractly: Jean Nouvel’s Louvre Abu Dhabi, finished in 2017, and the Al Musallah Prayer Hall by CEBRA Architects, completed in 2019. In the Louvre Abu Dhabi, a visually complex and permeable roof, seemingly disconnected from the programmed spaces, floats high above. The sky as a giant roof struck me as an apt metaphor for life in the desert. Al Musallah takes the form of a rock outcropping at the edge of the vast openness of the Qasr Al Hosn complex in the heart of Abu Dhabi. Somewhere between landscape and building, it is a reminder of the desert that the city rose out of.   

The buildings that interest me most are hybrids—buildings that have a local uniqueness but still build on the now universal language of late twentieth-century modernism. As the world becomes smaller and culture becomes more homogenized, architecture—like art, performance, and poetry—is necessary to translate the ephemeral and multilayered existence we all share. So much of modern architecture is familiar that it is easy to find a place of commonality and from there, begin to map and appreciate the differences. As I found these hybrids in Emirati architecture, I began to understand the powerful connections between Western and Middle Eastern thought. 

Essay and photographs by Craig Steeley