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Connect the dots: Dubai, labor,
urbanism, sustainability, and the
education of architects
Critique
By Michael Sorkin
Earlier this year, I was in the
leveraged Mercedes in the airport
Emirates to give a lecture and
parking lot as they split for home.
en
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was invited to visit the school of
The story making the rounds during
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architecture where one of my hosts
my visit was about the Bangladeshis
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taught. Segregated by gender, the
and other South Asians who form
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place was a Foucault fantasy made
the backbone of the construction
concrete. On one side of the build­
industry and who work in conditions
ing lay the studios and classrooms
of near servitude. Made redundant
for women students and on the
in massive numbers, many are too
other - in mirror image - the rooms
humiliated and desperate to let their
for the men. Between them were
home villages - dependent on their
faculty offices, all of which had two
regular remittances to survive­
doors, one to each side. 1he dean ­
know that they are unemployed and
natty in Armani - explained to me
are too fearful to reappear empty­
(as if the whole thing made sense)
handed. While it may be an urban
that the office doors were locked on
legend, the tale being told was about
the women's side on Mondays and
workers standing by the highway,
those on the men's opened so male
waitingtor the approach of a fast and
students could enter for meetings.
No, this is not a model; it's the view from a high-rise hotel of a sprawling
On Tuesdays, the configuration
new development in Dubai where odd juxtapositions abound,
was reversed. When my colleague
selves under the wheels in the hope
that some of the insurance might
proposed an academic exchange, I
most prestigious universities were
depressing. The bubble has burst
demurred, unwilling to contemplate
predicated on an even more extreme
in a big way and craning towers ­
the discriminatory logistics.
expensive car, and throwing them­
find its way back to their families.
Intimate links
form of gender separation. A little
including a fairly fabulous-looking
In June - the 40th anniver­
of my self-righteousness ebbed, not
rendition of the world's tallest
I repeat this story not to belabor the
sary of my college graduation - I
at the thing itself but at the idea that
- stand incomplete and empty,
cruelties of the Gulf's capito-feudal
thought back to those halcyon days
~t
such an arrangement was cast in
blowing zillions of BTUs to keep the
system
and remembered that one of the
stone and intractable. Indeed, we use
square miles of carpet cool to off­
complex dynamism, the intimate
to.evoke its ragingly
reasons I chose the college I did
such notions to demonize the Muslim
gas undisturbed. And yet. down the
links so visible between culture,
was for its "co-education." As a
other, as unsusceptible to change,
road in Abu Dhabi, Masdar city rises,
environment, development. and
progressive-minded teen, I thought
forever fixed in its ways.
as lavish an experiment in urban
human success. The segregated
sustainability as any on earth.
architecture school in the midst of
it was absurd that places like Yale
and Princeton were simply for boys:
The bubble has burst
I couldn't imagine living in such a
The Gulf states offer profligate
tions of the region's potlatch of
planet of what currently passes for
weird environment for four years,
lessons in uneven rates of mod­
(mostly) anti sustainable practices
architectural "invention," and the
While the planetary implica­
the most fabulous display on the
marinating in a pool of upper-crust
ernization and change and serve
are clear, the fallout from the crash
downside miseries this volatility en­
testosterone. This recollection ar­
as a museum of the weird cultural
has far sadder implications. The
genders, suggest more fundamental
rested my bien pensant liberal bile
forms that come from their extreme
economies of the Gulf are enabled
issues for the condition of architec­
at the Gulf school's setup, reminding
hybridity: The Guggenheim and
by imported labor, and most of these
ture, how we conceive of it. and how
me that it wasn't long ago that our
the mosque; the mega mall and the
states have populations that are at
we convey its values. This is not a
burka. You know the drill. Dubai is,
least 80 percent foreign. And when
random collection of observations
Contributing editor Michael Sorkin
of course, the locus classicus of this
jobs disappear, so must their hold­
raised to clarity by the designated
directs the urban design program at
over-the-top style, and my recent
ers. We've all read the tales about
weirdness of this particular place,
City College ofNew York.
visit was both jaw-dropping and
the laid-off ex-pats abandoning their
but a summary of the expanded site
08.09 Architectural Record
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Critique
design and planning; it stands, in
equipment of anyone who aspires
theory, for a more holistic view of the
to take an active role in shaping the
environment and the indispensability
planet. One solution is to give each
of an integrated perspective in think­
student entering a school of design
of architecture's production: educa­
planning, and landscape. These
ing about projects that exceed the
a common grounding on which to
tion, finance, construction. culture,
ossified rigidities seem increasingly
architectural scale. And it suggests
build later specialization. This would
incapable of coming to grips with
a strategy of inclusion, rather than
include rigorous introductions to the
the real state of the planet.
an endless consideration of what the
environment and natural systems,
place, sustainability, history, politics.
We have not moved swiftly
disciplines are not. Still, from the per­
deep immersion in the social and
ness and knowledge in architectural
of movement, especially in the
There are some small signs
spective of education, it feels a little
economic modes of production of
education, and Dubai stands as
stirrings of fungibility on the part of
like rearranging the deck chairs while
the built world, and a vivid ground­
a particularly clear object les­
planning and landscape. Although
preserving distinctions that have
ing in the global histories of physical
son in our own confusion: This is
I run a program in urban design, I
outlived their usefulness. As environ­
responses to the question of habita­
an environment designed by the
have a fundamental disbelief in any
mentalism becomes more and more
tion at every scale.
world's best and brightest, and for
unitary discourse of the city and try
the central authority for all design,
many, a paradigm of global inevi­
to offer access to many. Originally
why retain an boundaries at all?
tableness. The fetish for form that
conceived as a way of recuperat­
has characterized the profession
ing physical design from a planning
school of design that takes the unity,
time. Just as so many undergraduate
and the schools for the past few
profession that had fallen in thrall to
not the autonom ,of disciplines
architecture programs are formulae
decades has slighted much more
the social sciences, urban design is
as its predica e, a 'ay of opening
for fundamental illiteracy (too much
urgent matters, and it will come
often taught simply as big building
the field' 0 t e real possibility of
time spent lear ing structures and
as no surprise to regular readers
and fixates excessively on his-
its di ersi . Our
enough to embody such conscious­
I've been dreaming about a
Idest experi­
(linked inextricably) are those I feel
must foreground both the ideology
and the pedagogy of contemporary
THE OSSIFIED RIGIDITIES OF ARCHITECTURAL
EDUCATION ARE UNABLE TO CO ETO GRIPS
WITH THE REAL STATE OF THE PLA T.
CAD, none 0 5 ai\espeare, Oceanic
form of the es'c;~
rriculum carries
risks. If the ea-s ce .'o'ed to educa­
tion aren't e :>"'~:"':, :hen some­
thing crucial- _5: ::e eli inated. Or
we can begin:: :-'-: :~a design
architecture. Just as gender-segre­
gated education must be inter­
toric patterns. But urbanism's most
ments haven't go·:en us too far.
education mic;-: :: :e:::' a ed to
fogated, so the received organi­
desperate needs devolve on the
The Bauhaus foe sed, in varying
producing ac:- -5:5
RUonal formats of architectural
new morphologies of sustainability
degrees, on social production but
either to
education need to be questioned
and equity that an exponentially
retained disciplinar compartments
mentinalite-",::::':,,';ac;e way
and revised. Having taught in doz­
urbanizing world so urgently needs.
and continued to see architecture as
or to contin E:: :,=,,:e- 2 ::2- icular
ens of schools and visited hundreds,
The urban population increases at
the eternal mo her. It had indifferent
specializatio~_
I remain struck by the antique
the rate of a million people a week
ideas about the city and virtually
professions - .5: :-:::s "'.::: omous
ste~
-c: c~e prepared
',:: :- 2- :es' ,n environ­
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model of the design disciplines that
and, to me at least, that means that
nothing to sa about the environ­
pursuits,
still informs education: variations
we need to create numerous new
ment. More idiosyncratic, home­
vvith new kin:::5 :' : '0; -'0" S :' -: new
on the trivium of architecture,
cities on an urgent basis, cities that
,
,
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kinds of sch :
Arcosanti also fixated too much on
mon basis a-: :-:" 2-'0: ': - ':,': and
for themselves and
the leading role of architecture (and
refreshed s, ':::- ~=.:_
provide rich lives to
the infallibility of their particular
Recei e:
diverse popUlations.
popes), and were passionately un­
ing the men '-:- :-:'
scientific, though they did have deep
school in the: _'
"landscape urbanism"
commitments to craft and the earth.
ularlysatis ,";
as a position, if not a
Alas, architecture's historic and dan­
obedience - - , -=:. -
discipline, is a hopeful
gerous conflation of megalomania
does it kee : _-: -
sign. Not simply does
with the big scale led them to social
people apar:.
the conceit represent
and organizational dead ends.
state oftheE':-
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undary between the
:·2~:ices
of landscape
2 -::-~ec:ure and urban
e
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Our divided professions
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so
and
=-::::3::- =- "':::' ing
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educatedes·;-=--=:. ""=--:;c-:. _-lis
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tenaciously guard their turf and
will mean fa _,,';:'
look disdainfully at neighboring
together
disciplines. How tiresome this is l
apart.Desig~:;c-=:::- ~_:
:=-:,:_'::Jed
While I am not suggesting that each
with the kno :-:;=-::'
-=.: - =.. 2S
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rat~:;c- :-=:-
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designer be an impossibly learned
a building
polymath, I am arguing that the
common ethical and environmental
constructio- : - :'--: ::: :.:.:: '" ­
whatmakes:-:,:: -_-=.-=__
basis for design is becoming more
deepensou :::--=-::-:':: :'=' '" d­
and more apparent and more and
scape, what;-
more urgently part of the necessary
connection::
ArchitecturalRecord 08.09
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grown experiments like Taliesin or
the rejection of a hard
34
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are able to provide
The emergence of
.
Providing this foundation will take
art, or The Tale f Genji), so this re­
of this column that issues of the
environment and social justice
New kinds of schools
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