Impressive!

http://tinyurl.com/5r252d

How come there is no architecture forum here?

It is indeed impressive, a lively design, a great engineering achievement.

What depresses me, every time I see a picture of Burj Dubai, is how short a life it's going to have — if it even gets finished at all.

Anyone who doesn't realize that this building will be among the first targets of Iranian cruise missiles — after (not if) "our" forces attack the northern side of the Gulf — is seriously out of touch with current realities.

Being an "ally" of the thuggish neocon kleptocracy infesting Washington is going to become highly problematic for the U.A.E., as the Georgians found out this week. Unfortunately, the pile of rubble that this beautiful building will become, along with the twisted bodies of its tenants and builders, is going to be part of their problems.

Steve, you need to look at Monty Python's Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, on the OL thread entitled Crucifixion is Bad for You.

Barbara

Barbara,

I wonder if you have watched the youtube.com video McCain vs McCain to see the kind of person you are thinking of voting for!

In as much as the USA has no military bases in Dubai, there is no reason for them to be attacked. on the other hand the USA has 826 or so military bases in 130 countries.

My understanding is that Osama bin Laden was horrified to discover years ago that there were US military bases in Saudi Arabia the home of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina which led to his determination to attack America. Presumably the World Trade Center towers would still be standing today if the US did not have an empire of military bases around the world.

Guess who intends to bring the troops home?

Have you ever watched the John Stossel interviews on youtube.com with Ron Paul? About time. There is an effort to influence the delegates to choose Ron Paul with www.DVDs4Delegates.com
Once the DVDS are in the delegates possession the DVDs will be uploaded to youtube.com I believe for all to see. Politics is the art of persuasion is it not?

galt

Is that Mohammed's latest erection? Mostly paid for by American motorists.

Ba'al Chatzaf

In response to the invasion of Georgia, and also in his essay "The Rogue State Roll Back" McCain has explicitly stated that the ultimate long term foriegn policy goal of the United States should be to end murderous tyrannies, and in fact all the Free Western nations (which happen to be the most militarily powerfull) should form an alliance of democracies and actively oppose egregious acts like Russia's invasion of Georgia and in the long term work, with force as a backing, toward the elimination of murderous dictatorships. This is the only long term forieng policy goal of rational self interest. Constitutional liberal democracies do not start wars, they do not kill their own people, and they undermine terrorism. Murderous tyranies create all the social problems of the world, from famines to pandemics (which might wipe out all human life) start all the wars, breed the terrorists, and committ all of the genocides / democides. Allowing any of these kinds of nations, which are nothing more than huge hostage / prison camps, to entrench themselves is a bad idea and will always come back to bite us.

The murderous tyrannies of the middle east are using the most poweful energy reserves on the planet to, not surprisingly, murder people, breed terrorists, and invade other nations. If left alone (along with the abandonment of military basis) the whole of the middle east would degrade into the hands of the most murderous and most vitriolic person, who, now controlling a vast majority of the worlds energy supplies, would insititute their program to bring Islam to the whole world through force.

The murderous tyrants of the middle east also despise western culture, they call the America the great Satan because classically satan was a TEMPTOR and the vast majority of their people if left to their own freedom of choice would adopt the majority of western culture and abandon the majority of the stifling oppressive racist and sexist traditional forms of islam. It is the existence of the west and their material impact on the world that radical islamicists despise. The Taliban banned music, dancing, and even "Leonardio Decaprio haircuts" which were very popular due to smuggled copies of 'Titanic' Even if the US abandoned all military basis and strategic alliance in the middle east (a murderously naive thing to do) just because they worry they might piss some crazy murderer off, other crazy murderers would still despise the US because it tempts their children to eternal damnation. What do you propose we do, BLOCKADE the middle eastern nations ruled by shitty religious tyrants in order to prevent western media products from entering? Create an electromagnetic faraday cage around Iran to block those offensive Britney spears transmissions from making it through?



Only the most idiotic politician would adopt an isolationist stance of foriegn policy in the current age of globalization, international flights, and nuclear and bio terrorism. Only a suicidal individual would adopt such a policy in the coming age of synthetic life and nanotechnology, given that it is an observable law of technological advance that every year it becomes easier and less expensive for fewer people to kill more and more people. If the libertarian isolation policy had been adopted during the cold war, where the US did nothing unless it was directly attacked, the Soviet Union would have merely invaded and conquered every single other nation on the planet, including eventually Canada and Mexico. The US would have been surrounded by a global communist empire and would have been easily eradicated. It is proper, and in the rational long term self interest of any nation, to always deal the best blow it can against it's worst enemy.

I remember when I first heard the story of Abraham whose father sold stone idols. One day his father was out. Abraham destroyed the stone idols except the largest one and placed the hammer in its hand. When his father returned and asked what happened and who destroyed his stone idols Abraham pointed to the remaining statue and said: He did! His father responded: Thats impossible! These idols are unable to do anything! To which Abraham replied, Thats what I have been trying to tell you all along!

I wondered. If Abraham was the first Jew does that mean he married a non Jewish girl?

As a boy I was relieved to discover that the Jewish people had given up the practice of human sacrifice. That is until they became modern day Democrats who support the sacrifice (enslavement through taxation) of their countrymen to fund all the social programs which are bankrupting our society.

The issue of our day is not whether there is a supernatural deity or not. Rather it is whether the moral code of Altruism will continue to prevail and motivate people who are indoctrinated from the day of their birth with such primitive tribal notions as Altruism, the justification for all manner of human sacrifice and enslavement to this day.

Wm

Such a magnificent building!!! Dubai is a fascinating place, one can only marvel at the potential that could be being built right now in the US or other free western nations without the oppresive economic and building regulations they now face.

This Dubai sky scraper was probably designed and built in less time than it takes the New York city pull peddlers on average to decide on a design for the new WTC and then reject it.

Who is "they" bubbah? "They" is also me.

Ba'al Chatzaf

I didn't mean you obviously. Being individualistically oriented I shouldn't have used collectivist jargon. There are the jewish people who became liberals and those who became whatever else. It raises the question of just what are the criteria for being considered to be a Jew. I consider myself to be one although I am a far cry from those who practice the orthodox version, and I am sure they would not consider me to be one of their kind. I am sorry if I lumped you in with those who did and have become Democrats who I am sure think they have the answers for the rest of mankind.

I do share your concern that the next president should not be a wimp but be willing to do and say what may need to be done and said to the world and especially to the bad guys but also the good guys and the misguided within it.

galt

Selene attempts to remember to put the web sight in!

This architectural firm is truly remarkable - the closest I have seen to the Frank Lloyd Wright model.

http://www.sybarite-uk.com/045.htm

No Bob,

It is the erection of human greatness.

Michael

That's about what I've come to expect from you these days.

A magnificent architectural creation, with thousands of innocent people inside it, is going to become a casualty of war, likely very soon. (Don't remonstrate with me, you know the likelihood as well as I do, and the U.A.E. cooperates too closely with the U.S. government to have it be ignored.)

All you can do is pass it off with a witticism, or an allusion to one. (To a very good one. But the Pythons were satirizing mindless adherence to ill-thought-through standards. That doesn't hit home? Hmmm?)

Will this be inevitable "collateral damage" from your — and your cousin Leonard's, and Yaron Brook's — favored crusade against "Islamofascism"? Fighting the latest self-created anti-concept with others' lives and treasure? That must be why you're so cavalier about it.

Maybe it'll be short-circuited. By war with Russia, which Boot, Kristol, Perle, and your particular neocon favorite, the smearing Horowitz, have all been baying for. If so, this building might actually survive.

Into 2010, perhaps.

Steve,

With that load of pessimism, I don't suggest you go into selling commercial real estate.



I quip because I don't share your pessimism, not because I think you are a dummy or anything like that.

As a person, I harbor deep feelings of good-will towards you. I wish there were a way I knew of to alleviate the torment you express so often.

I know Barbara well enough to know this was the intent behind her comment. You should put that possibility on your plate of analysis along with the unsavory stuff.

Michael

Michael:

As Tom Hank's said in Forest Gump, as Jennie collapses to the ground, "Sometimes, there aren't enough rocks!"

Adam

Adam: I like a quote from Gumpisms, which was written by Winston Groom (the author of Forrest Gump) but not included in the movie:

"If you don't know where you are goin', you will probably not wind up there."

This quote seems to tie into this entire thread, but I just can't figure out how...

(scratching head...)



Michael

Michael:

Being the philosophical Cheshire Cat!

Well said.

Adam

I just saw the thing on the calendar below.

Happy birthday, Adam. How's it feel to be 30?

You're getting up there.

Michael

Michael:

I was just having a conversation with a client in Missouri about birthdays and I "shared" < new politically correct way of saying> stated that why is this day any different than yesterday or tomorrow to me?

And more importantly I now can get some of the monies that the government have confiscated from me for 50 years since I started working at 12 ears old because work had an intrinsic value the way I was directed by my parents.

Thank you for the birthday statement. lol

Adam

Fellow lovers of fine architecture,

The Burj Dubai won't be impossible to knock down, but will require a lot more than an airliner. It has a much more "redundant" structure, meaning that should one structural part or system fail, others will step in to support the buildiing more efficiently than did the structural systems of the World Trade Center. The more or less identical WTC buildings had a structural system that included a load-bearing exterior, a few interior columns, and a concrete core, with little to replace the load-bearing abilities of other parts of the building, should there be catastrophic failure. There was, however, some unintended reduncancy: miraculously, the exteriors of the buildings unintentionally functioned as bridges over the airliner-created openings in the structures' skins, replacing for a time the load-bearing capabilities of the destroyed portion of the structure, and allowing more time to get out of the buildings. The Burj Dubai is a cluster of ovals and cylinders in plan that have much more capability to fail independently of the entire structure, if ever required. This is somewhat similar to the Sears Tower in Chicago, by the same architects, which is designed structurally as 9 vertical bundled tubes, although it does not have all the redundancy of the Burj Dubai. And the fireproofing used today is better than that of the WTC, and much harder to disjoin from the structural members.

The redundant structure is, in part, why the Burj Dubai looks so "heavy", at least in its framing stage. Perhaps it will be lighter-looking once the skin goes on. It's a stupendous architectural achievement and I have liked it since first seeing the design drawings. But, for the real future in massive buildings I would recommend looking at the work of Norman Foster and other architects, who are achieving much lighter and elegant bridges and buildings. He did the "gherkin" in London, among other structures.

In the August, 2007, issue of Architectural Record, America's leading architecture publication, there is an article about the world-wide resurgance of the skyscraper. In it the author writes, "Market and regulatory demands have become so perilous for skyscraper interests in the United States - epitomized by the flawed process at the WTC site - that many domestic observers and fans of the typology have given up expecting anything more than mediocrity, or what we could call the 'Miami Effect'."

This is evident in some American cities. But, I don't agree with the blanket nature of the comment. In San Francisco, near where I live, there are a few fine new highrises that may be somewhat conservative - as much of San Francisco's architecture is - but that are very well done, nevertheless. And there are fine new highrises in other American cities. Santiago Calatrava's design for the Chicago Spire, a twisting and undulating form, is remarkably beautiful, the most beautiful highrise I have ever seen. It will be a wonderful exclamation mark on the skyline of Chicago, the home of the skyscraper.

And, by the way, most of the highrises in Dubai are extraordinarily banal, as are almost skyscrapers in Beijing and Shanghai, with a few exceptional stand-outs. They are cheaper-looking and generally worse architecturally than those in America. (The "America bashing" that goes into the writer's article is fueled and informed by the politics of the left, which, pretty much, are the politics of architecture critics and writers.) If you have seen the buildings of Beijing on TV while watching the Olympic marathons run through the streets you will know what I mean.

On Solo there is a New Zealand architect who, for years, has decried the currrent state of architecture and longs for the days of Frank Lloyd Wright. He zealously goes after almost all modern architecture. I mention him because he seems to have positioned himself as some kind of significant objectivist commentator on architecture. His kind of completely unthinking, nose in the sand hero-worship gets in the way of many objectivists when they think about art and architecture. They long for Wright and they despise modern art, especially abstraction. (And the New Zealand writer's occasional scatological and sexual outbursts are bizarre and repellant. Is this Kiwi humor? I doubt it.) In the morning, in their showers, he and others might try singing Paul Simon's "So Long Frank Lloyd Wright" and look around at the spectacular buildings going up now. Be thankful for the great beauty Wright brought us and the marvelous innovations regarding building layout he created, and move on.

Incidently, I recently had my website updated. It includes my work, as well as that of my wife, Karen, and our daughter, Genevieve. It is JamesShay.com.

Jim Shay

Hey Jim,

I went and visited your elegant site. Congratulations on your two successful careers.

I enjoyed the colors, changes in tone, and the compositions of the first two paintings, year 2002. http://jamesshay.com/paintings_2002.php





I sense a degree of spatial movement from the background to the foreground. And I particularly like the texture in those two. I don't have a sense of intimacy, but rather I feel a polite distance or formality--as if the landscape is merely a catalyst to compose and play with color.

Michael