Showpiece City: How Architecture Made Dubai (Stanford Studies in Middle Eastern and Islamic Societies and Cultures)

**Staggering skylines and boastful architecture make Dubai famous—this book traces them back to a twentieth-century plan for survival.** In 1959, experts agreed that if Dubai was to become something more than an unruly port, a plan was needed. Specifically, a town plan was prescribed to fortify the city from obscurity and disorder. With the proverbial handshake, Dubai's ruler hired British architect John Harris to design Dubai's strategy for capturing the world's attention—and then its investments. __Showpiece City__ recounts the story of how Harris and other hired professionals planned Dubai's spectacular transformation through the 1970s. Drawing on exclusive interviews, private archives, dog-eared photographs, and previously overlooked government documents, Todd Reisz reveals the braggadocio and persistence that sold Dubai as a profitable business plan. Architecture made that plan something to behold. Reisz highlights initial architectural achievements—including the city's first hospital, national bank, and skyscraper—designed as showpieces to proclaim Dubai's place on the world stage. Reisz explores the overlooked history of a skyline that did not simply rise from the sands. In the city's earliest modern architecture, he finds the foundations of an urban survival strategy of debt-wielding brinkmanship and constant pitch making. Dubai became a testing ground for the global city—and prefigured how urbanization now happens everywhere. "Dubai is famous for its staggering skyline and dizzying architectural wonders. In the 1950s, though, the city was little more than a small fishing settlement. Showpiece City narrates how Dubai was modernized over the course of twenty-five years by British colonial authorities and Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum. Dubai's cityscape, chaotic and hyper-modern though it may seem, is based on the careful planning of British architect John Harris. Todd Reisz tells the story of how Dubai was planned and transformed from the 1950s to the 1970s under the auspices of global capitalism"-- Provided by publisher Series Page Title Page Copyright Contents The Dubai 1960 Town Plan Prologue: Here’s a Plan 1. Bustle 2. Landscapes for Production 3. Hardened Edges 4. Taking Measures: 1960 Dubai Town Plan 5. Piecemeal: Al Maktoum Hospital 6. Crispness: National Bank of Dubai 7. Health City: Rashid Hospital 8. Future Flyovers: 1971 Dubai Development Plan 9. All in All: Dubai World Trade Centre Epilogue: Storylines Indebted Notes Index