Dystopia of desire
Born in the desert and soon became an inexhaustible crossroads of the global grand tour, Dubai has evoked in more than one commentator the image of a new Babylon, referring generally to the multiplicity of nationalities that populate it and to the increasingly surprising performances of its urban image and its lifestyles.
Desire as an act of will actually seems to be the criterion that shapes the urban image of Dubai; it is desire that shapes the playful design of new territories on the sea, it is desire that feeds a continuous race to the highest, to the greatest, to the most surprising, that is taking shape in a series of episodes closed in themselves, in districts, compound, communities that, although still using an urban framework born in the 50s, does not come to recompose a unitary idea of the city.