A new pedestrian bridge nearly 1 km long will link the glitzy Dubai Mall to the nearby metro stop – finally!
I swear Robert Ferry and Elizabeth Monoian from the Land Art Generator Initiative are magicians, because everything they touch turns to gold. (If you haven’t already downloaded their free field guide to the 60 renewable energy generating technologies, here’s another chance.)
Maybe it’s because the American couple have spent so much time in Dubai, where there’s loads of gold, diamonds, and other bling to be found. In any case, the following images come straight from their personal blog, Journal Arabia, and capture the essence of excess better than anything I’ve seen so far. Check out renders of the new pedestrian bridge that will connect the Dubai Mall metro stop with the mall itself (somewhat belatedly). It will be nearly 1km long.
The one and only time we visited the Dubai Mall, which is just a little bit too rich for our green blood, it was so hot outside we pined for air conditioning. And you know we aren’t big fans of a/c. As though it’s obvious that metro riders can’t really afford to shop for more than a cup of coffee at the Dubai Mall, no walkway between it and the metro stop was proactively planned.
This is what Ferry says about it over on Journal Arabia:
Presently, you have to walk two large blocks outside and then through the parking lot to get from the station to the mall. One can’t help but notice how much of an afterthought this bridge is. I wonder why it wasn’t subterranean.
You can get anything you want at the Dubai Mall. And if your ankles can handle it, you can buy these extraordinary jewel-encrusted high heels. It always shocks westerners to know that Arab women conceal all kinds of fashionable clothing beneath their dark abayas. But wealthy Emirati ladies are particularly well-dressed – depending on how you define well.
There is no clearer symbol of Dubai’s excess than the world’s tallest tower, the Burj Khalifa, which stands in close proximity to the mall. Nor is there a more appropriate example of the Emirate’s shabby urban planning. See this tower. It has approximately 160 floors and no.on-site.human.waste.system! Instead of flowing through a network of carefully-laid piping to a municipal waste treatment center, every day some poor unfortunate soul has to truck approximately 8 tonnes of human waste from this skyscraper and sit in line for up to 24 hours to have it dumped.
This is but one section of the Dubai Mall – the world’s largest based on total area. To keep consumers occupied for hours on end, there is an aquarium, an ice-skating rink, and row after row of the most mind-blowingly expensive unnecessary stuff you can image. There are 1,200 retail outlets in sum. Not far from here the construction workers who built this wealthy playground live in shacks, but inside there’s a sprawling Souk full of gold designed to evoke the Emirate’s traditional trading past.
More on Dubious Dubai and its Towers of Excess:
Oversize Load: Poop From the Burj Khalifa
Abu Dhabi Will be More Liveable Than Dubai
Author: Tafline Laylin
As a tour leader who led “eco-friendly” camping trips throughout North America, Tafline soon realized that she was instead leaving behind a trail of gas fumes, plastic bottles and Pringles. In fact, wherever she traveled – whether it was Viet Nam or South Africa or England – it became clear how inefficiently the mandate to re-think our consumer culture is reaching the general public. Born in Iran, raised in South Africa and the United States, she currently splits her time between Africa and the Middle East. Tafline can be reached at tafline (at) greenprophet (dot) com.
Oh, Chris. You’re so right. Yikes. Thanks for pointing that out. I’ll fix that right away.
Unfortunately the writer is incorrect in saying that you can snowboard or pet a penguin in Dubai Mall… they are attractions in Skit Dubai, which is in Mall of the Emirates.. A totally different mall with a different metro station.