Dubai Creek Tower – Santiago Calatrava
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Breaking the ground, breaking the records. Santiago Calatrava’s tower DCH will soon become the tallest building in the world reaching 828 meters, and winning over his older neighbor Burj Khalifa, thus becoming the next new landmark in Dubai. The works just started and the tower will be complete before the opening of Expo2020.
The Spanish engineer and architect Calatrava whose bridges have become his signature in many cities, approached Dubai with a different project. “Throughout my career, I have used technology and engineering as a vehicle for beauty and art. This project is an artistic achievement,” he declared. In fact, the tower will be a mix of techne and art, a mix of “elegance and beauty with mathematics and geometry,” he added. Its skin repeats for 828 meters the weave of flowers. Its structure is the compromise of nature and history. It reminds the shape of a lily flower but also evokes the shape of a minaret, a distinctive architectural feature in Islamic culture.
The tower will be at the center of Dubai Creek Harbor as the acronym DCH explains, and its central Plaza will become a lively epicenter of Dubai’s life, similar to that of Mediterranean piazzas or Arab souk. It will include retail space, a museum, educational facilities, and an indoor auditorium. Other spaces for events will be up the spine of the building.
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Daria Ricchi
Daria Ricchi is an architectural historian and writer. She is currently visiting fellow at Oxford University, UK.
She has a Ph.D. in history and theory of architecture from Princeton University. She has taught at Princeton University, Yale University, and Parson. The New School, New York.
She published widely in scholarly and non-scholarly magazines (area, casamica- il corriere della sera, Low-Res, Pidgin, Threshold, AA Files).
