DUBAI CULTURE HUBS

George Katodrytis
StudioNova Architects – Dubai / Toronto / Nicosia
www.studionova.org

Mutations of Urban Culture and Form
What is magnificent about photographers’ and filmmakers’ perceptions of the world is that they introduce a new Leibnizian state: infinite perceptions, insensible differences. This is our foretaste of a unified urban condition. On the other hand, it is ironic that at the end of a century characterized by the most dizzying urban transformations in human history, urban design is still haunted by the irrelevant ghost of the historically outdated European center city.
Sweeping cultural changes at the end of the 20th century driven by the proliferation of information technologies and service industries have challenged the primary role of history, theory and philosophy in architectural, urban design and planning discourse. The dominant sources of the most influential urban strategists and provocateurs are now photography, graphic design, popular cultural media, global communications, digital morphogenetic modeling and statisticians.
In this framework, a surreal hybrid machine that reproduces its own non-identity, Dubai is the most successful model in the region. Architecture is crucial, for it acts as a catalyst of this phenomenon. There is no new theory here, rather a realization of commonplace and well-rehearsed attitudes toward the city, which is seen as the sum of events and urban activities.
Dubai represents the truly generic condition of the contemporary city. This is made even more extreme by the nomadic influx of millions of tourists. It is a place where history has been almost completely blotted out, where the terrain has become completely artificial, where the urban tissues do not hold together beyond a relatively short time. This type of generic city amounts to no more than the coexistence of a number of apparently unconnected buildings that, by virtue of proximity, happen to form an urban condition.
In this type of city the notions of center and periphery have lost their validity. Even more, it seems as though the city has lost its site, for it tends to be everywhere and nowhere. This fragmented and collaged city, which is perpetually being made and remade “a la carte,” is really a replica. Like the Futurists did a century ago, this is the moment to talk about the autopoeisis of architecture and its utopian capability: the increasing autonomy and self-referential closure of the discipline of architecture.

Dubai Culture Hubs
Transformation is a crucial element of contemporary urban culture. To cope with the demands of society, cities are constantly in flux. They grow both vertically and horizontally, increasing in density and intensity. They require re-structuring and transformation on almost every level. Our proposal focuses on the manipulation of the urban fabric by inserting structures that trigger change, provoke and demand response.





The proposal is for a series of cultural hubs, which will act as focal points and public foyers where cultural programs can be plugged-in: art galleries, museums, libraries, performance stages, poetry reading salons, music recital spaces, art auction facilities, etc.



The main lobby of the buildings is to be as public and accessible as possible, like a typical Dubai shopping center, with escalators and ramps leading to the upper levels, and to special rooms for additional cultural events.



All events and items will be consumable: the aim is to convert the culture of shopping into shopping for culture. The external skin structure and glazing is designed using algorithmic weaving scripts.



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