Hasta La Ideas

A couple of weeks back, we hypothesized that maybe all German architects disliked the Burj Dubai, the newly-opened, regularly jumped-off, tallest building in the world. It was a bold statement, we agree, but we had quotes from several of that country’s architects on record explaining their distaste for a mostly-empty, absurdly gigantic tower in an emirate with an economy in ruin. Now, via Archinect, we can further our theory as one of the biggest of the big architects in Germany, Albert Speer Jr., has spoken to Der Spiegel about what he thinks of the new tower and if he’s just as put off by the whole thing as many of his other countrymen. Speer sees it like many have, regardless of their nationality, as a building built from ego and without much concern for sustainability, something he feels has plagued the whole of Dubai, not just the Burj:

When one builds a city — at least I think so, as a German — one builds it for the next 200 years rather than the next 10. Take the German city of Freiburg, for example — the layout of the city is the same as it was in the year 1000. But in Dubai, it is likely that the majority of the buildings there will have to be torn down again before too long.

This writer will be in Germany next month. We’ll make sure to ask around to gather up a more precise consensus, should we find ourselves in the company of architects.

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