[GERARDORS]

Rem Koolhaas, afamado arquitecto holandes, ganador del Premio Pritzker 2000, planea edificar a la orilla del golfo Pérsico, en Dubai, una isla urbana con ambición ecológica que permitirá prescindir del coche.

La isla en cuestión es cuadrada, tiene 1,3 kilómetros por 1,3 kilómetros, y Koolhaas y Reinier de Graaf, uno de sus socios, la tienen en fase muy avanzada de diseño. Con la densidad de Manhattan, será levantada sobre terreno ganado al mar, una aventura familiar para los holandeses. Concebida como el distrito financiero de Waterfront City, que es el nombre de una nueva ciudad en construcción para 1,5 millones de habitantes situada entre Dubai y su vecina Abu Dabi, el cuadrante reservado al arquitecto constituye el paradigma de lo que denomina "ciudad genérica". Según su ideario, dicha urbe sin historia surgiría de la nada y sería multicultural y multirracial, premisas cumplidas por este proyecto.

El resto de la gran Waterfront City, encargada a otros diseñadores, no sólo aparecerá en el desierto que era hasta hace poco la zona oeste de Dubai. Una vez completada, añadirá unos 70 kilómetros de costa a la ribera actual. En su interior, la isla de Koolhaas servirá a su vez de hogar para 92.000 personas, y de oficina a 130.000 más. Llegadas en su mayoría de Europa, Pakistán, India y Egipto, son los abanderados de una sociedad plural en Oriente Próximo que tendrá rascacielos en lugar de torres. Y donde no habrá coches, aunque sí una red de 10 calles con muchos árboles y poco aire acondicionado, gracias a un ingenioso sistema de ventilación natural de las calles.

Convencido de que "el problema no es que la arquitectura sea antigua o moderna, sino la calidad de lo nuevo", el pedazo de desierto que le han brindado edificar, supone otro de los retos ideales para su obra. Además de uno de los emiratos, Dubai es una metrópoli en sí misma con 1,6 millones de habitantes, dentro del conglomerado formado por los Emiratos Árabes Unidos. Con el mar como frontera natural, su mandatario, el jeque Mohamed bin Rashid al Maktoum, pensó en construir en el golfo Pérsico y así ganar espacio. De paso, esperaba crear un centro turístico más atractivo que Egipto. Como avanzadilla de su proyecto, plantó cerca de la orilla un trío de islas en forma de palmera, mapamundi y escorpión que componen la urbanización más lujosa, fotografiada y sorprendente de la historia. Luego llamaron a Koolhaas y le pidieron que se aplicara en un espacio dispuesto más que nunca a la experimentación.

Responsable, entre otros, de la Casa da Musica de Oporto; el Grand Palais de Lille; el proyecto del Centro de Congresos de Córdoba; el Museo Guggenheim de Las Vegas o la Biblioteca Pública de Seattle, la oficina de Koolhaas está repleta de dos tipos de colaboradores. Los jóvenes, le miran con reverencia; los socios parecen protegerle a base de sonrisas. Tal vez ambos equipos sean la suma de la "fuerte personalidad, confianza de buen comunicador y autodisciplina para moverse en situaciones complejas", exigidos para trabajar con un jefe que ha sido elegido una de las 100 personas más influyentes del mundo por la revista Time.

 

[E -zone ³]

render plan maestro

maqueta

la esfera de 44 niveles

me emociona mucho el hecho de que pueda llevar a la práctica su teoría de la "ciudad genérica", este arquitecto es un verdadero genio.

saludos

 

[Jonn]

en el primer render parece una ciudad de Star Wars, incluso hasta tiene un edificio igual a la estrella de la muerte!!

 

[E -zone ³]

del NEW YORK TIMES

ARCHITECTURE REVIEW
City on the Gulf: Koolhaas Lays Out a Grand Urban Experiment in Dubai

It has been 12 years since the Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas unleashed his concept of “the generic city,” a sprawling metropolis of repetitive buildings centered on an airport and inhabited by a tribe of global nomads with few local loyalties. His argument was that in its profound sameness, the generic city was a more accurate reflection of contemporary urban reality than nostalgic visions of New York or Paris.

Now he may get a chance to create his own version.

Designed for one of the biggest developers in the United Arab Emirates, Nakheel, Mr. Koolhaas’s master plan for the proposed 1.5-billion-square-foot Waterfront City in Dubai would simulate the density of Manhattan on an artificial island just off the Persian Gulf. A mix of nondescript towers and occasional bold architectural statements, it would establish Dubai as a center of urban experimentation as well as one of the world’s fastest growing metropolises.

The mixed-use project, startling in scale, is a carefully considered critique not just of the generic city but of a potentially greater evil: the growing use of high-end architecture as a tool for self-promotion. To Mr. Koolhaas this strategy, which many architects refer to as the Bilbao syndrome, reduces cities to theme parks of architectural tchotchkes that mask an underlying homogeneity.

His strategy is not to reject either trend outright but to locate each one’s hidden, untapped potential, or as he puts it, “to find optimism in the inevitable.”

In Dubai Mr. Koolhaas and his Office for Metropolitan Architecture seem at first glance to have simply combined the two concepts, creating a hybrid of the generic and the fantastic. The core of the development would be the island, which would be divided into 25 identical blocks. Neat rows of towers — some tall and slender, others short and squat, depending on the zoning — line the blocks, as if a fragment of Manhattan had been removed with a scalpel and reinserted in the Middle East.

The monotony is broken by mixed-use structures whose immense scale and formal energy draw on mythic examples from architectural history. A spiraling 82-story tower might have been inspired by the minaret of the ninth-century Great Mosque of Samarra in Iraq; a gargantuan 44-story sphere brings to mind the symbolic forms of the 18th-century architect Étienne-Louis Boullée. The tilting intertwined towers of a complex dubbed “the loop” are a more elaborate version of Mr. Koolhaas’s headquarters for China Central Television, being built in Beijing.

These varied elements are organized with Mr. Koolhaas’s customary flair for composition. (Although his desire to tackle big urban issues can sometimes make him seem dismissive of the design work that makes up the average architect’s life, he remains one of the art’s greatest practitioners.)

The island project would be a perfect square, emphasizing its isolation. The tallest towers are concentrated along the project’s southern edge to shield the interior blocks from the blazing sun. The gigantic sphere is placed precariously at the water’s edge, setting the entire ensemble artfully off balance. The spiraling tower stands just across from it, on a narrow spit of land that forms a barrier between the island and the gulf.

The way Mr. Koolhaas addresses the island’s isolation raises the most difficult questions. If his island of densely packed towers evokes a fragment of the great 20th-century metropolis, it can also conjure its dystopian twin: a miniaturized version of a city of glittering towers built for the global elite, barricaded against the urban poor and its makeshift shantytowns. (Think of George A. Romero’s 2005 flick, “Land of the Dead,” with its menacing corporate masters peering down on a world of faceless zombies.)

Mr. Koolhaas softens this effect by creating a series of somewhat tenuous connections to other developments on the mainland. Along with four slender bridges — one on each side of the square — Mr. Koolhaas plans to link the project to the fledging Dubai transit system, which is already under construction. More towers would rise opposite the island on a curved embankment, as if the island city were spilling beyond its boundaries.

But the thrust of his strategy is to turn the logic of the gated community on its head: isolation becomes a way to trap urban energy rather than keep it out. His goal is to imbue his waterfront enclave with enough complexity to provide a distilled version of the great metropolis within this moated sanctuary.

A waterfront boardwalk would surround the island. A narrow public park slices through its center; shaded sidewalk arcades are meant to draw people out of the air-conditioned buildings. In its northeastern reaches the plan’s geometric grid gives way to an intimate warren of alleyways, like a traditional souk.

Mr. Koolhaas takes a similarly textured approach to the buildings themselves. The sphere, for instance, is conceived as a self-contained three-dimensional urban neighborhood. Various public institutions are encased within smaller spheres suspended inside the space that are connected by escalators enclosed in long tubes. These smaller spheres are embedded in layers of residential housing, like embryos floating in a womb.

In the spiral tower terraces wrap around a soaring public atrium crisscrossed with escalators and walkways, an effort to pull the surrounding street life right up through the interiors.

Will it work? Some of the public zones, still in the earliest stages of design, are surprisingly conventional, including the formal arrangement of the park, which could be likened to the Champs-Élysées. So far the boardwalks framing the project lack the intricate layering of public and private spaces found, say, on the Corniche in Beirut.

Whatever his social goals, Mr. Koolhaas will have little control over the makeup of this community, which, if current development in waterfront Dubai is any indication, is still likely to serve a small wealthy elite.

Then there is the question of scale. Covering six and a half square miles, the island is roughly the size of a small urban neighborhood. Is this large enough to sustain the dense social fabric that Mr. Koolhaas is after? Or is it more likely to become a new species of gated enclave, architecturally stupendous yet profoundly exclusionary? Does its compact size make it easier to seal off from supposed undesirables?

Whatever the answers, Mr. Koolhaas’s design proves once again that he is one of the few architects willing to face the crisis of the contemporary city — from its growing superficiality to its deadening sterility — without flinching.

If he fails he at least will have raised questions that most architects would prefer to leave safely unexplored. If he succeeds he could bring us closer to a model of a city that is not only formally complex, but genuinely open to the impure.

 

[NorthWesternGuy]

:drool:Un verdadero sueño que podría volverse realidad... Amm.. Supongamos que vivo en esa ciudad:lol:, y quiero ir a una ciudad vecina. Habría aparcamiento para automóviles a la salida de la ciudad o algo asi?


Otra duda: En el texto en español, dice que será un cuadrado de 1.3 km por lado(1.69 km2) mientras que en el texto de arriba (English) dice que tendrá 6.5 mi2 (16.8277 km2). Cuál es la superficie real?

 

[Dasan]

No manches se ve bien perro! bien futuristico. Estos arabes si que tienen dinero!

 

[Nikkodemo]

Que se puede esperar de Dubai....:drool:

Pero vaya reto lo de sin carros, será una proeza.

 

[MexCorp]

:eek2: DE Dubai yo ya me espero lo que sea , increible este proyecto!! Lo que me pone de malas es como este arquitecto de tanto prestigio en el mundo nos haya diseñado u nproyecto para nuestra ciudad y que hacemos lo guardamos en la lista de espera para uqe nunca se construya!
En Fin, Dubai como ya dijeron cada vez se parece mas a las ciudades de Star Wars haha ya me imagino Dubai en el año 2500 ya toda gigante con puro rascacielos autos que vuelan haha y fantaseando con extraterrestres hahahaha ( naa)

 

[ARCHI TJ]

Oigan, ¿Y todavía Rem Koolhaas construirá algo en México ?

Despues de la amarga situación de la cancelación de la torre embarazada.

hno:

 

[luife100]

La torre Bicentenario es lo mas feo que he visto de este arquitecto.

 

[Balam56]

voy a cambiar la frase, por esta nota que acabo de leer. en vez de decir que "la ociosidad es la madre de todos los vicios" tendre que decir sin temor a equivocarme que
" el dinero es el padre de todos los vicios" je je je je

 

[GMPatlacocity]

lo malo de los arabes es que estos son lso petroleros pero las zonas marginadas son teriblemente horrendas, bueno en fin como dicen que mas se pude esperar de Dubai, me encanto la esfera como que es lo que mas resalta de todo el complejo