I can't wait 'til this thing is fully operational
May 22, 2007 2:36 AM   Subscribe

A convention centre you say? Gosh, I wonder what sort of convention might want to turn up to a building like this?
posted by NinjaTadpole (21 comments total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
Will the UAE ever get tired of building crazy shit?
posted by Roman Graves at 2:46 AM on May 22, 2007 [1 favorite]


Now witness the firepower of this FULLY ARMED and OPERATIONAL battle station!
posted by zardoz at 2:57 AM on May 22, 2007


Gosh, I wonder what sort of convention might want to turn up to a building like this?

One that defies conventions.
posted by vbfg at 3:04 AM on May 22, 2007 [1 favorite]


Cement envy.
posted by Firas at 3:23 AM on May 22, 2007 [1 favorite]


Ole Remmy (or his godawful marketing department) can tell himself whatever story he wants----but at the end of the day, it's about the pure form of the millions and millions of euros. It's not really Deleroius Dubai, it's just a simulacrum of one.
posted by DenOfSizer at 3:28 AM on May 22, 2007


I don't know, I just can't reconcile so much exposed steel with the notion of "pure form", "modern landmark" etc. When I think of ways to break out of the grasp of old architectural style and make a distinctive form I think of something like the Lotus Temple.
posted by Firas at 3:30 AM on May 22, 2007 [1 favorite]


I think it's because glass and steel 'ages' so quickly—it's like "digital fonts" in 80s movies. Not to mention that it's the windswept office park aesthetic.
posted by Firas at 3:35 AM on May 22, 2007 [1 favorite]


Cement envy.

Or an edifice complex.
posted by pax digita at 3:54 AM on May 22, 2007 [1 favorite]


The design is either pure marketing genius or an invitation to a terrorist attack by a kid flying a biplane.
posted by zarq at 4:50 AM on May 22, 2007


"...an invitation to a terrorist attack by a kid flying a biplane."

Covered by a smuggler in a DC-3
posted by Tenuki at 5:30 AM on May 22, 2007 [1 favorite]


Will the UAE ever get tired of building crazy shit?

I hope not.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 6:02 AM on May 22, 2007




Flashman, are you disagreeing with me or concurring? I think that building looks good, but like I said, I think it quite dates/periods itself as a 20th C. post-industrial white-collar artifact.

I may be making more of an urban-planning criticism than an architectural one; but my point is that basically that walking through the financial district in the evening is so—alienating—compared to eg. newbury street. Nobody lives there; it's just a bunch of buzzing office floors by day and in the evening everyone leaves for their suburban enclaves. It just seems wrong. And again, the steel and glass skyscraper aesthetic connotes that sort of stuff in my mind. Stark segmented drabness.

I'll readily admit that it's a matter of taste in the end, but I'll take marble and warm cement and paint over cold metal and tinted glass. And indeed if the Seagram Building is a landmark of modernist architecture, what's the next step? Modernist architecture in a sphere? Compare Faisaliyah Center to Kingdom Tower; both were constructed around the same time but the former's architects had to go for that stark solid bars of metal look. I think it dates itself quite strongly by that choice. It may be distinctively contemporary but not timelessly so.
posted by Firas at 7:04 AM on May 22, 2007 [1 favorite]


Actually the Faisaliyah Center doesn't even look modernist, it's like a 1950's version of 'the space-age future'. An anachronism in its time and a joke after that.
posted by Firas at 7:11 AM on May 22, 2007 [1 favorite]


uh, zardoz, it's really:

"Now, witness the firepower of this FULLY ARMED and OPERATIONAL Convention Center!"


Pudong , your response, and La Defense , to staging area please.
posted by djrock3k at 7:42 AM on May 22, 2007


Thats no moon...
posted by rossmik at 8:13 AM on May 22, 2007


A boobie?
posted by SentientAI at 8:39 AM on May 22, 2007


That's a pretty...unconventional...building.

I'm sorry. :)
posted by smably at 1:47 PM on May 22, 2007


It's actually a gigantic steel and glass oocyte.

...Awaiting God only knows what fiery and apocalyptic fertilization.
posted by jamjam at 2:01 PM on May 22, 2007


No one notes the immense tag pun: Baby Jesus cries.
posted by NinjaTadpole at 3:10 PM on May 22, 2007


That's because it reads 'conventionalwea...' to us, NinjaTadpole-- a little too immense.
posted by jamjam at 5:09 PM on May 22, 2007


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