The best architecture is invisible. Dubai has signed up two of the world’s most famous practitioners to prove it
Monocle was on the road this week in Dubai at the World Governments Summit (WGS), where we built a Monocle Radio studio and an outpost of our café. The vast event comprises numerous auditoriums hosting conversations and debates, companies pitching their products and delegations looking to strike deals in the UAE. This year there were just shy of 40 world leaders in attendance, 500 ministers and numerous business CEOs, especially from the technology sector. And many of them came through the front door of our studio.
Meanwhile, over at our coffee hub, the customer base went beyond cool Emiratis. The chief of police came by and generals whose chests were fly-posted with galleries of medals took meetings under our parasols. I also met the inventor of the phrase “fear of missing out”, was entertained by one of Japan’s most famous TV magicians and talked shop with a man who created a successful tech company off the back of looking like Tom Cruise.
I particularly enjoyed this edition because, as well as the discussions about AI, next-generation governance and the race to a future that might obliterate much of what we know, there were gentler, philosophical conversations woven through the programme. This was especially true when it came to the topic of making better cities. What’s more, Monocle got to help nudge this debate along.
On Thursday I moderated a talk between architect Santiago Calatrava and Marwan Ahmed Bin Ghalita, director general of Dubai Municipality, for a session called “How do cities preserve the human soul?” I asked them both about the notion of “invisible architecture”. This is the idea that it’s not just the steel and timber shells of buildings that shape a city – and how we feel in a place – but also numerous silent, unseen elements that help to determine how we respond to a place. Consider how the flow of people through a train station is managed through design, how accessibility is in the DNA of a building (not a clunky add-on) and how tactility and light are introduced. Calatrava placed his hands on the armrests of the chair, using this to mimic the walls of an edifice, and explained that this really wasn’t the important part and certainly not where you discover the soul of a city. Rather, he said, “it’s what happens in the void that matters”. It’s in the bit between the walls where everything happens, where we work, shop and catch the train.
It’s true. Think of how the void in a cathedral or church can make you feel. It’s hard not to be awed, moved, when you enter, say, the monumental Grundtvig’s Church in Copenhagen. A soaring void is also what Calatrava used in the vast white World Trade Center Transportation Hub in Manhattan. And, he explained, these are places where you can have an individual conversation with your surroundings or be one with the crowd. And, perhaps, find some soul.
Dubai is grappling – like many places – with this issue because while it wants and needs to grow apace, it realises the necessity of making a city that people love, feel at home in, become attached to. The director general, a man overseeing endless planning consents, told the audience that his checklist of what made a good building was whether it would be a place where memories were made, not just function efficiently. That’s a powerful point because it’s memories that bind us to a place and allow us to create mind maps of the settings where our life has unfolded in hopefully wonderful ways.
Also on stage with me this week was Kengo Kuma, an architect with a philosopher’s eye on his industry. He was eloquent about the need to work in harmony with nature and how architecture can improve our well-being while going almost unnoticed.
Dubai wants to be at the forefront of new technology, urban mobility and much more. But it’s also at a moment when it’s keen to develop ideas around city-making, community, co-designing, youth engagement – ideas that could help deliver a place where tradition moves hand in hand with the future. That’s why it was announced during WGS that Kuma and Calatrava will become principal contributors to Dubai Municipality’s Urban Planning and Design Lab, which is focused on participatory design, youth engagement and working with nature.
A city famed for its pace and building skyline-defining towers could also become a laboratory for a gentler urbanism. There’s lots to do – but it is on their agenda.
To hear more voices on city making from the World Governments Summit, listen to the latest episode of ‘The Urbanist’.
Read next: Beneath the skyline: Discover the real Dubai with Monocle’s City Guide
