In case you missed it, Dubai unveiled its monument to the decade that brought fame and fortune and falling property values:

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The Guardian:

The inauguration of the tallest building on Earth was supposed to be a show of defiance by Dubai’s rulers after a property crash which threatened to shatter the Gulf emirate’s reputation as a global economic power.

But tonight’sspectacular ceremony, which revealed the Burj Dubai’s 828m height for the first time, became a moment of supplication when the decision was revealed to name it Burj Khalifa, after the ruler of rival but much richer emirate Abu Dhabi who came to the rescue when Dubai’s finances descended into crisis last autumn.

Is the Burj Khalifa to Dubai what Avatar is to America? One is a positive reaction to the just-departed decade, the other a negative reaction? Both are monumental.

Charles Mudede—who writes about film, books, music, and his life in Rhodesia, Zimbabwe, the USA, and the UK for The Stranger—was born near a steel plant in Kwe Kwe, Zimbabwe. He has no memory...

9 replies on “The Tallest Building in the Mad World”

  3. Revealed for the first time? What, was it in a giant box or behind a giant curtain?

    I would have been more impressed by either of those than I am of this.

  4. That sure is a lot of scrap metal. Bet that’ll bring in a pretty penny when they have to tear it down because they’re too broke to keep it operating.

  5. Monster development projects often are out-of-phase with the economic cycle, given how long it takes to finance/design/build something like this. Has been true for many of these including the Empire State Building (opened in the early stages of the (first) Great Depression, the late lamented World Trade Center, etc.

    And Avatar was just a massively shitty movie with nice visual renderings.

  6. Except, @5, there’s no evidence that Dubai is on a cycle of any kind. Tulip prices in Holland never went back up to $25,000 apiece. They claim the building is mostly leased but few of the companies that did the leasing even exist anymore.

  7. The Dubai debacle cracks me up even more than the Las Vegas one. No one wants to even live in Las Vegas, and Las Vegas doesn’t have debtors’ prisons.

  9. Every town needs and over-sized phallic symbol to be considered relevant. That’s why D.C. has the Washington Monument, NYC has the Empire State, Toronto has the CN Tower and Seattle has the Space Needle.

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