The Building That Put Dubai on the World Map (Part 1)

Burj Al-Arab 

Image: Maddie Braswell (Pinterest)

With the oil wealth of Dubai fast depleting, The City's ruler, Sheikh Muhammad bin-Rasheed Al-Maktoum envisioned a project to put Dubai on the map of the world as a tourist destination. For this to happen, Dubai needed an iconic hotel that was meant to be a symbol of beauty and luxury. At 321 meters this building is the tallest and arguably the most luxurious hotel in the world. 

The Design

The Sheikh wanted something so iconic that would make Dubai and essential tourist stop. For that purpose he hired a team of young, inexperienced but known for their unique designs, architects under the leadership of Tom Wright. This team did not disappoint the Sheikh by designing a building so simple and so elegant that it became the center piece of  Dubai's tourism industry.

While explaining the design process, Tom Wright said: "If you could draw a building simply, with a few strokes of the pen and it was instantly recognizable as not only the building but the place where it was, like the Egyptian Pyramids; you have created something iconic". He put his design to this simple test and found the solution to this ultimate dilemma of designing a simple but elegant building when he was sitting with his team having a beer on Dubai beach and saw a boat with its sails billowing in the wind. That was his Eureka moment. Thus he decided that the building would be in the shape of a sail billowing in the wind which was truly representative of the nature of Dubai.

The Island

To make the building look like giant yacht, Tom Wanted the building to raise from water. It meant that the building had to be built on a low elevation island of which Dubai had none. Keeping in view the adverse climate of the gulf, Tom's team was against the idea of building an offshore skyscraper on an artificial island but he was not to compromise. The debate between Tom Wright and his team was still going on when the Sheikh intervened and decided that the building will be built on an artificial island off the coast of Dubai.

This is all for today, in the next blog we will discuss the challenges faced by the construction team during various phases of construction of this engineering marvel.