The Gutter

Gutterland Police Blotter: Dubai Robs Boston's Best! 
Thursday, February 9, 2006

bostonindubai.jpgSure, most people in Boston would be happy to lose the Prudential Center tower, the first of what has proven to be a veritable plague of B skyscrapers forming a lackluster spine in the Back Bay and marring the Hub for all eternitude. That said, Boston is a proud town, and we don't imagine anyone there wants some crazy UK architects sneaking in by cover of night to spirit away a civic symbol. No matter how butt ugly. This in from Reader RH:

Oh, great Guttersnipe--

You've probably already seen this but just in case you've somehow missed it…

I received the attached image a few weeks ago and had a bit of a chuckle, thinking it was a joke. Alas, this appears to be an actual rendering done by DOSarchitects for a proposed tower in Dubai. How do I know this? Well, I happened to open up the latest Arch.Record (I know you don't read it anymore and, truthfully, neither do I; I only look at it for the pictures even though my mother keeps telling me I'll go blind) and the image, minus the incriminating text/arrows of course, is used in an article on Dubai. Does Arch.Record share the Times' fact checkers? Does anyone care? Is there no shame in ripping off an entire city or a portion of it to make your building look good?

Quoting the Arch.Record (Feb. 2006) article: "Reality in Dubai can prove more bizarre than photographs of it." Apparently sometimes buildings that don't even exist in Dubai can show up. Maybe Boston is actually Dubai and nobody's bothered to tell us. Or maybe, just maybe, in an effort to drive up sales, the Pru powers-that-be created some kind of weird tesseract thingy around the Prudential Center that makes it exist outside our space-time, allowing it to appear in both cities simultaneously, but neither city realizes it and somehow DOSarchitects was able to show us the truth; what reality actually looks like. What else don't we know? Is Brad actually the genius behind all of Frank's work? Does J-lo store all her design talent in her booty? Is the AIA actually a worthwhile organization? Oh man, I think my head's gonna explode.

Yours in tectonic bitterness

· DOS Architects to Build in Dubai [WAN]


Posted in Our Fallen World

Reader Comments (14 extant)

1.

It's in a desert, it's a mirage.

By Freddy Botchy at February 9, 2006 12:46 PM

2.

How many fake projects in Dubai can we have though? Every architect makes up these renderings and claims to have huge projects in Dubai.. 99% are lying.

By Angered at February 9, 2006 12:53 PM

3.

Obviously those two towers in the background won't be built. They're just thrown into the render in order to make it looks better. Dubai isn't robbing anything here. The only person who's robbing is whoever decided to use Boston's skyscrapers in the render. This is to be located in Dubai marina where in fact none of the towers in the background will be built. Obviously there'll be other skyscrapers around it if built but definitely not Boston's

By Anonymous at February 18, 2006 11:29 AM

4.

OK to add to what I said. The reason they put in a fake skyline is because at the moment what you'll see is mostly desert but by the time the tower is finished it would be surrounded by 200 more. Dubai marina and another development behind it have about 200 or more towers being built at the same time so it would be unrealistic to show an empty desert as a background

By Same anonymous as above at February 18, 2006 11:33 AM

5.

As one of the architects of the proposed tower I would like to second the comments made by numbers 3 and 4 regarding the backround used for our proposal. Dubai is growing at such a vast speed that its impossible to have updated images of all the towers around ours. The "angered" person who commented earlier (no 2) would do better to make a constructive point about our design rather than trying to de-legitimise it by assuming its a fake

By dosarchitects at February 19, 2006 12:40 PM

6.

I only wish it were fake. It looks like a giant mud dauber's nest. I could see it in some sci-fi giant bug movie, and this is where they all come from. Get a better renderer.

By Blunt Force Trauma at February 20, 2006 1:35 PM

7.

helzberg diamonds Probaly you should read this. helzberg diamonds Hope this helps. See you next life

By helzberg diamonds at March 6, 2006 1:33 PM

8.

online texas holdem Sorry :)

By online texas holdem at March 17, 2006 8:17 PM

9.

So is this project going to be built in Dubai?

By unknown at March 18, 2006 7:09 PM

10.

The only city in the entire world where such "bizarre" or "far-out" (or insert any other dubious term here) towers can and more importantly WILL be built, is DUBAI.

It might seem "fake" or strange to some now, but then how many must have said that about NY in the 1930s, Paris in the 1800s, Egypt 2500BC, etc etc.

I'm just glad im a witness to the most amazing evolution in mankind's architectural skills since the skyscrapers of America.

By Anonymous at March 19, 2006 10:49 AM

11.

Is this thing actually going to get built or is it just a concept design, for a competition or something?

By Anonymous at March 21, 2006 10:33 AM

12.

diamond engagement rings Probaly you should read this. diamond engagement rings Hope this helps. See you next life. Buy diamond engagement rings now

By diamond engagement rings at March 27, 2006 3:02 PM

13.

diamond engagement rings Probaly you should read this. diamond engagement rings Hope this helps. See you next life. Buy diamond engagement rings now

By diamond engagement rings at March 27, 2006 3:03 PM

14.

http://www.ringtones-dir.com/get/ ringtones site. Free nokia ringtones here, Download ringtones FREE, Best free samsung ringtones. From website .

By ringtones free at July 13, 2006 5:51 PM



All set here? Continue enjoying The Gutter...
« Architectural History, Now With Bonus Arms! | Home | Remulons to Unveil Stealth Tower in Kentucky »

Back to top


About The Gutter
Ill-mannered commentary on the architectural arts.


Search The Gutter



Gutter Links
AIA New York
Archinect Forums
Arch League of NY
ArchNewsNow
Architectural Review
Architecture Magazine
Daily Dose
Design Observer
Greg.org
ID Magazine
Metroplis
Miss Representation
PushPullBar
The Architects Newspaper
Testy Tastemaker
WTCBurlesque
Van Alen Institute


Published by


Contact
Email The Gutter

Feed
RSS/Atom

Credits

Editor
The Guttersniper

Publisher
Curbed Network

Technical
Eliot Shepard

Software
Movable Type

Copyright © 2008 Curbed


NEW SERVER
built at May 17, 2008, 7:50:54 pm in 0.0849 seconds