Symmetry Meditations: Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi

camminando | A Metro Ride to Dubai Downtown

Walking in Dubai is a challenge, in a pedestrian unfriendly city spreading for about 75 km in the north-east to south-west direction. Construction is all over and often there are no sidewalk and I give up my walking ambitions, yet I decided to opt for an hybrid of walk and public transportation.

My hotel is in Barsha, about 2 km from the Media Internet City Metro Station. The Red Line of the elevated metro rail (driverless and fully automated) takes me with a 15 km / 15 minutes / five stops to Downtown Dubai, running parallel to the highway Sheikh Zayed Road. The mixed-use downtown development is towered by the Burj Khalifa, the tallest man-made structure in the world, at 829.8 meters.

 

Approaching Dubai Downton: will the skyline become a place?

Views from the Dubai Mall: isn't the world a global place?

Dubai Downtown, everlasting construction

My field of view framed by palm trees framing the Burj Khalifa: isn't high relative in our perceptions?

Dubai Fountain Lake

Walking in Dubai Downtown

Views from the Dubai Metro Red Line

Driving | Dubai: Desert Views

Dubai reminds of Las Vegas, not only for its extravagant architecture, shopping malls and lack of pedestrian urban spaces, but also for the surrounding landscape. Both cities are characterized by vertical manmade expansion in the horizontal yellow-red horizontal desert landscape. Even more in Dubai, the desert offers a fluid changing sand dunes shaped contrasting perceptions from the urban rigid manmade environment.
The desert offers a totally different environment from the urban places, perceptually and culturally. Below are a few views from one of the tourist favorites: the desert safari. A 80 kilometers drive takes to another extravaganza: a fast four-wheel drive into the dunes.

La Biennale di Venezia 53rd International Art Exhibition Fare Mondi / / Making Worlds | Parties: Abu Dhabi at the Peggy Guggnheim

The United Arab Emirates first participation at the Biennale was celebrated in two memorable parties.

The first party was at a celebrated "traditional" art venue, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection. Later a shuttle transported us through the water of the Canal Grande ---and less well know canals--- to the ADACH (Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage) a late-night party at Spazio Thetis, across the water from the Arsenale.

A few visual memories, including a snapshot of an unusual empty Arsenale, taken during my return to the hotel, recovering from getting lost in a rainy night at 3am in Celestia ---and those of you are familiar with the venetian labyrinths can sympathize!

Photographs and text are excerpts from the conceptual multimedia project
“Axes Mundi: Perceptions and Understanding of Places as Intersections of Space, Time and Culture”