January 12, 2010

Nima Nabavi on the Burj Dubai Khalifa Opening Ceremony

The Opening Ceremony of the Burj Dubai was to take place at 8pm on January 4th. I had been hearing from the always-consistent, sometimes-reliable Dubai rumor mill that the masses would so crowd the malls and courtyards surrounding the tower for the festivities that it was vital to get to the scene by 5pm. I tried to verify the validity of all this, only to get vague responses like, “You know, that’s Dubai Time for ya!”. When I asked what that meant, I got an even vaguer, “Who knows? Sometimes its on time but other times something stupid happens”. Regardless, we decided to heed the warnings and managed to get out of the house by 5ish (which is pretty admirable by general Middle Eastern standards). We had called for a taxi, but when it didn’t show, my dad came up with an abrupt and messy plan which called for all of us to stand at different points along the stretch of road and make independent taxi-hailing efforts. Despite all logic, this worked and we were soon on our way. The taxi driver had a strange laugh and my father looked at him as though insulted by his audacity. (more…)


May 27, 2007

Launch of With/Without, Dubai

May 27-28, 2007
At the International Design Forum, Dubai

withwithout

Shumon Basar, Antonia Carver and Markus Miessen, co-editors of Bidoun Book WITH/WITHOUT: Spatial Products, Practices and Politics in the Middle East, participated in a discussion with Stefano Boeri and Rem Koolhaas, followed by the launch of With/Without and sister publication Al Manakh. Order the book from the Bidoun online shop.