Connect the dots: Dubai, labor, urbanism, sustainability, and the education of architects
Earlier this year, I was in the Emirates to give a lecture and was invited to visit the school of architecture where one of my hosts taught. Segregated by gender, the place was a Foucault fantasy made concrete. On one side of the building lay the studios and classrooms for women students and on the other — in mirror image — the rooms for the men. Between them were faculty offices, all of which had two doors, one to each side. The dean — natty in Armani — explained to me (as if the whole thing made sense) that the office doors were locked on the women’s side on Mondays and those on the men’s opened so male students could enter for meetings. On Tuesdays, the configuration was reversed. When my colleague proposed an academic exchange, I demurred, unwilling to contemplate the discriminatory logistics ...story continues
Photo © Robert Ivy
No, this is not a model; it’s the view from a high-rise hotel of a sprawling new development in Dubai where odd juxtapositions abound.
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