Socio-economic and Geo-political Perspective

The GCC is considered as one of the most urbanized regions in the world, with an estimated 70 percent plus of the population residing in cities. Furthermore, within each state, there is predominant pull toward the capitals and metropolitan areas as socioeconomic centers and global players. Most GCC states are in the process of setting forth spatial development strategies to balance and shift growth as well as dependencies on oil. This serves as a crucial moment to analyze the growth of Gulf cities. One proposition is that Gulf cities are designed and evolved as pure interfaces to the 21st century economy and as such architecture and urbanism are seen as dynamic facilitators and flexible commodities. One area to explore is how these cities fit in transnational urbanisms and global capitalistic forces, where world cities are conceptualized as nodal points of command, coordination, and control as the spatial (urban and architecture) component becomes evident. 

Geographical Perspective

The new simulated SimCities, dynamic formations, master plans and speculative developments are now projecting new satellite urbanisms. Reconnaissance technologies turn into spectacle and ‘telegenic’ fantasies addressing mass tourism. Simulated panoramas and imagery of unfinished projects give rise to an exciting promise and fantasy. In effect, digital imagery and technology is shaping the future of cities. After all, we are all nomads inhabiting an image. The traditional Islamic horizontal urban pattern and its direct relation to land and water have shifted to vertical and global networks of trading, tourism, fantasy and investment generating new fractal cities and satellite urbanisms. This is the future state of world urbanism – prescriptive and full of visual dramatization. The exploration of places through imagery is a contemporary phenomenon. As the technology in the production of imagery of un-built and newly built architecture has become more sophisticated, its image becomes an end in itself and can now be transmitted across the globe instantaneously. The imagery of artificial coastlines and intense skylines of clusters is now projecting a new urbanism. 

Historical Perspective

The discovery and commercial exploitation of oil from the 1930s onwards has served as the historic marker of transformation of Gulf landscapes and communities. A drastic shift from tribal societies and coastal trade to an economy embedded in global networks, occurred in a matter of decades. However, both aspects are still prevalent today and often appear as overtly expressed supra-narratives in an attempt to cater to the longing and nostalgia for a not-so-distant past. This often overlaps with a larger encompassing Arab orientalist narrative. For instance, UAE developers have adopted the elongation of the picture frame - the panoramic - especially resonating the landscape found in Orientalist paintings. This technique simulates depictions used in historical representations. Despite the current production of iconic architecture, this exact historical representation coincides 3 with a mental map of these cities, which paradoxically is still routed in their Islamic imagery. The expo of Orientalism is now driven by Master Developers, promoting a western lifestyle in oriental settings, representing Gulf culture as haute couture in exclusive towers of wealth or gardens in exotic islands. These cities manifest the contemporary interpretation of Orientalism: sensual, spectacular, artificial, subliminal and, above all, contemporary and global. As the model of the Islamic city shaped by Westerners might show an ‘indigenous’ space, this imagery is now a major export, attracting millions of tourists seeking the authenticity of the ‘Middle Eastern City’. In effect, imagery and the ‘global tourist’ has been shaping Gulf cities and in return they shape the world.