By ANNE GIBSON
New Zealand's Fletcher Construction recently completed the world's tallest hotel in a stunning grand gesture of engineering expertise and building prowess.
Burj Al Arab, meaning Arabian Tower, is only slightly shorter than Auckland's Skytower. The hotel, opened in December, is perched in the Persian Gulf's crashing white surf, across an artificial causeway on its own grassed island.
Said to be the world's tallest hotel, there is little doubt it is the most unique. This 56-storey billowing sail of a building is probably Fletcher Construction's most unusual project.
It was one of the last to be completed before the Auckland-headquartered company decided to concentrate on construction in New Zealand and the Pacific Islands.
Fletcher Construction was the managing partner in a three-way venture. Pre-construction and initial stages of construction were undertaken with Al Habtor Engineering, of Dubai and Murray & Roberts, of South Africa. The steel and concrete work was done using some of the world's tallest cranes.
The hotel is lavish, inside and out. Its walls are covered in 22-carat gold filigree. Specialists were brought in from Europe to craft the fine details on the walls and ceilings. Gold leafing coats 2000 square metres of the hotel, the equivalent floor space of 20 average-sized New Zealand houses.
The pillars are of gold. So are the walls and domes and ballroom.
If the gold does not get you, the height will. The hotel is 321 metres high, taller than the Eiffel Tower and just 60m shorter than the Empire State Building. It has 28 levels, but each is the equivalent of two generous floors in an average modern building. g, so the hotel is 56 storeys.
nteIt was built on a man-made island a quarter of a kilometre offshore. It has 202 suites and is just one of a triumvirate of tourist attractions on the block. The others are the 600-room Jumeirah Beach Hotel, designed to resemble a wave, and the Wild Wadi water theme-park, favoured by German and British tourists.
The hotel has been backed by the ruling Maktoum family and is one of three significant developments. The international airport terminal and the Emirates twin towers are the other two.
Why so many important new buildings in such a small place? The answer is that the oil will not flow forever.Dubai's oil is forecast to well up for only another 25 to 30 years, with reserves of four billion barrels, compared to its wealthy neighbour, Abu Dhabi, whose 92 billion barrels will last 130 years.
What to do when the wells stop flowing? The answer is invest in property and become a broad-based financial services city.
Dubai has transformed itself from an oil sheikhdom with an uncertain future into a Hong Kong-like city with an international economy, no tax, highly favourable foreign investment incentives and an outward vision. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashed Al-Maktoum, the Crown Prince of Dubai, is putting the finishing touches on a real estate development programme that makes Manhattan look old and tired.
Foreigners are banned from owning property in this benign dictatorship where even men do not have a vote and women are veiled. Though its social reforms remain bound to Islamic tradition, the emirate is leaping ahead economically.
The forceful heir to the Maktoum family fortune plays a mean game of development. One of the richest men in the world with an estimated $US20 billion, Sheikh Mohammed and his family have bankrolled an ambitious handful of buildings which put a new sparkle on the Persian Gulf city's skyline. The emirate is a flower of the desert in full bloom.
The single most ambitious Maktoum family development is Dubai Airport's expansion. It includes a new building for the existing 12 million passengers who arrive or transfer annually and is planned to cope with the 20 million people predicted to arrive by 2030. Total airport expansion plans amount to an investment of $US1.75 billion.
The new silver concourse building, which opened on April 15, is almost a kilometre long. In the concave shape of an aeroplane fuselage, it includes a 100-room five-star hotel on its upper two levels with an indoor pool, 55 aircraft parking positions, 221 check-in counters and 42 clear air bridges for boarding and disembarking. It is connected to the existing concourse by an underground tunnel which runs a third of a kilometre.
If that is not enough, an identical terminal costing $US600 million will be built in 2003. The new terminal adds 148,200 sq m of total floor area. (New Zealand's largest shopping mall, St Lukes Shopping Centre, is 33,000sq m.)
The terminal cost $US540 million to build, is 800m long and five levels high. Why so large? Dubai was identified as the Middle East's fastest growing airport by Airports Council International, which monitors growth trends at hundreds of airports around the world. Dubai is now the world's sixth fastest-growing airport. , its increase in numbers ranking it ahead of Dublin, Milan and Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport. nteIt is run by one of the Maktoum family members, Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, President of the Department of Civil Aviation. This family leaves little to chance.
Aside from all the statistics and politics, the new terminal is as beautiful as an airline building can be. Its elegance comes from its simplicity and smooth, bright aerodynamic design. Its steel structure and glazed glass skylights with their blue-green tint give it a cool, shimmering look, suggestive of all things skyward. Inside, the building feels like a funnel-shaped five-storey jumbo jet. From the outside, it looks like the world's largest plane. It is simply stunning. Having flown to Bahrain out of the old terminal, but returned to transit just two days later through the new, the transition is from third-world status to first.
With a penchant for height-setting records, Dubai bills its central-city Emirates Towers Hotel as the world's third-tallest hotel at 305m, or 51 storeys. Like the airport, it opened on April 15. It has 400 rooms and sits on a 17-hectare site a few kilometres back from the beachside Burj Al Arab.
The hotel, built with Maktoum money, has 11 restaurants, including one on the 51st floor where views stretch down the azure coastline of the Arabian peninsula. The building is one of a matching pair. Its twin is another skyscraper, this time a 350m office tower, billed as the tallest building in the Middle East and Europe, and the 10th tallest in the world.
The hotel has a 30m-high atrium revealing clear lifts shooting between the floors and up to the 60 deluxe rooms and 52 club executive suites at break-neck speed.
If Burj Al Arab is a sail, then the Emirates Towers are the ship's prows. They are certainly the newest landmark on Dubai's modern skyline.
Anne Gibson was a guest of the Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing in Dubai and flew Emirates Airline.
Links
Burj Al Arab Hotel
The good oil on new Arabian sights
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