Sometime in 2011, three twisting towers are set to shoot up along a man-made creek in the desert sheikhdom of Dubai.
Bent at the waist, the Signature Towers will be the work of the Pritzker prize-winning architect Zaha Hadid, who, with fellow Pritzker winners Norman Foster and Frank Gehry, is leading an architect rush to the Emirates.
“We are trying things out for the first time which we wanted to try out, but couldn’t,” said Patrik Schumacher, a partner at Zaha Hadid Architects. “We have found an unusual degree of receptiveness to new ideas in the Gulf.”
The Persian Gulf is home to more than $2 trillion worth of construction projects, fueled by a quadrupling of oil prices over the last five years. As the Gulf states – home to about 40 percent of the world’s proven crude-oil reserves – seek to diversify away from hydrocarbons, their appetite for landmark buildings is growing.
Read more at the Source: Hadid leading architectural rush to the Emirates International Herald Tribune.