Krise

The turbo pace of urban design in Dubai has slackened since autumn 2008. Real estate business is grinding to a halt. Foreign construction workers and experts are losing their jobs. The flaws of the social and economic Über-Orient are being exposed through the crisis.

After years of continuing reports from Dubai on architectural records being broken and new wonders of the world being built, the Western news media now rushes to announce the failure of a hypertrophic urban vision. The New York Times sees Dubai’s economy “in free fall” (02.12.2009), the Guardian speaks of a crisis of the “shrine to unbridled capitalism” (02.13.2009) and the Independent looks behind “the dark side of Dubai”  (04.02.2009).