The Creek is the true Dubai’s soul. For thousands of years fishers and pearl divers have been settling at the shores.
Records of this area are very rare for any period before the XVIII century when about 800 members of the Bani Yas tribe settled here. At the end of the XVIII century their settlement had become a dependency of Abu Dhabi. In 1833, following tribal feuding, members of the noble Al Maktoum family left Abu Dhabi, established themselves in Dubai and declared the town's independence.
In the XIX century Dubai was a small town living off fishing and pearling, guarded by Al Fahidi Fort. The fort still exists — as well as the Maktoum dynasty still rules Dubai.
The building that has seen it all: the oldest building of Dubai is a slender round watch tower of Al Fahidi Fort. The tower was built in 1787, the fort — circa 1799. It was used as a seat of the ruler, an arsenal, a prison and since 1970 — as a museum of Dubai where you can see the emirate’s history presented in galleries and dioramas.
At the end of the XIX century Sheikh Maktoum signed an exclusive business deal with Great Britain, making Dubai a British protectorate, gave full tax exemption for all foreign traders and convinced a major British steamship line to make Dubai a port of call. Tax breaks attracted Iranian pearl and textile merchants. They built the Bastakiya neighbourhood named after the Bastak region in their homeland — southern Persia. The business was doing great until the Great Depression and the emergence of artificial pearls had hit it hard. The middle of the XX century was the time of political and economic unrest in Dubai.
The building that has seen it all: one of the oldest buildings in the city, an official residence of Sheikh Saeed Al Maktoum, built in 1896. His grandson, the present Ruler of Dubai, spent his childhood here. During this time the Sheikh’s palace had no electricity or running water (both arrived only in the 1960s). Now the house is a museum.
Everything changed in the 1960s with the discovery of oil which was like summoning a powerful jinn. With a little help from the oil jinn the humble town has turned into a megapolis.
A vivid symbol of the 1960s optimism about the future is the Deira Clock Tower was built in 1964 at the gateway of Maktoum Bridge, which was the first permanent link between Bur Dubai and Deira across the Creek. Dubai’s oil had not been discovered yet (it would be in 1966) but the search was on and Abu Dhabi’s oil was already found — and that meant new trading opportunities for the whole region.
The modernist structure was listed by The Telegraph as one of the most beautiful clock towers of the world. The tower was reconstructed in 1989. The clock faces were replaced only once in 2008.
In 1971 the United Arab Emirates, a federation of seven emirates, was founded. In this union Abu Dhabi and Dubai are the only members who have veto power over matters of national importance, while the other five emirates only have a vote.
The building that has seen it all: the Union house, a circular building where the nation’s Constitution was signed in 1971. In 2017 the Union House was integrated into a larger structure of a new futuristic building of The Etihad Museum dedicated to the UAE’s creation. The shapes of both buildings — the new one and the old, swallowed by the new, — are significant. The old one allowed the rulers of all the emirates to sit in a circle (so there was no hierarchy). The new one has a scroll-like form that resembles the parchment paper of the constitution.
The 35-storey tall Dubai World Trade Centre was the first high-rise building in the city, constructed in 1979 (then in the middle of nowhere). Less than 40 years ago it was the tallest building of the Middle East.
Contrary to popular belief, Dubai’s economy is not driven by oil anymore, since Dubai has reinvested the profits in shipping, financial services, tourism, real estate, etc. In the 1980s Jebel Ali port was declared a free zone operating under a separate Westernized legal code. That’s how Jebel Ali has become one of the largest and busiest container ports on the planet.
Later another special legal code was introduced for The Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC). For example in Dubai one goes to prison if he can not pay his debts — but not in DIFC.
Remember the Bastakiya neighbourhood, built in the early XX century by Iranian merchants? In the 1980s half of the Bastakiya neighbourhood was demolished to make way for the development of a new business complex. The remaining houses were mostly used as warehouses, waiting to be also destroyed. A British architect Rayner Otter started a campaign to save Bastakiya — the campaign reached Prince Charles who helped to persuade Dubai’s authorities to preserve and restore the neighbourhood. Now Bastakiya (or Al Fahidi) is the most charming part of Bur Dubai: narrow lanes with elaborately restored Iranian merchants’ houses occupied by tiny cafes, shops and art galleries
A typical element of Bastakiya houses is a wind tower or windcatcher — a traditional device for natural ventilation and cooling. Wooden sticks on the sides were used to mount cloth so as to efficiently redirect the airflow. Even when there was no wind hot air would naturally rise up and leave through the tower.
One of the most picturesque cafes of Al Fahidi occupies an old house with a wind tower and a courtyard. The house was built in the early 1920s and probably belonged to a rich pearl trader.
The story of a man behind Arabian Tea House has a lot to do with Dubai’s history. A grandson of a pearl diver, Ali Al Rais had left the UAE in the 1970s for a career in aviation. As an aviation manager he spent 20 years travelling around the world, admiring the way people in different countries promote their culture, food and heritage. When he returned home in the 1990s the government was restoring the Al Fahidi district. Ali had seen it as an opportunity “to showcase my city to people from all over the world”, as he told Friday magazine. In 1997 Ali opened this cafe which is a cultural landmark now.
In the XXI century Dubai has become the centre of a tourist boom — by building beach resorts and giant attractions and also giving non-Muslim tourists some liberties like drinking alcohol in licensed spots.
A giant wave of the Jumeirah Beach Hotel was erected in 1997 toward the beginning of the tourist boom. When completed, the Jumeirah Beach Hotel was 93 metres high making it one of the tallest buildings in Dubai — since then it has been overtaken by more than 100 other tall structures. Only over the last 20 years Dubai has rapidly become a skyscraper city.
One of the world’s most advanced and challenging buildings, listed by National Geographic as one of 14 most beautiful museums in the world. This giant torus with an elliptical void was made of stainless steel and fibreglass and inscribed with illuminated Arabic calligraphy. Designing the building required extremely sophisticated modeling tools.
Each floor of the museum is like a movie set and incorporates elements of traditional exhibitions, hi-end technology and immersive theatre. The museum is also an incubator for innovations bringing researchers, designers, inventors and financiers together. The building is powered by solar electricity.
As executive director Lath Carlson told CNN that the museum deals with questions like: how might people live in a space station, how might we respond to ecosystem collapse? The main ambition of the museum is to inspire mankind to build a better future. One of the lesser ambitions is to build a museum culture in Dubai.
Nowadays Dubai has about 200 buildings taller than 150 metres including the world tallest tower — the Burj Khalifa opened in 2009. It is 828 metres tall (or 2 Empire State Building tall).
Dubai is actually the city of crazy maths. During the XX century the population of Dubai had grown from 10,000 up to a million. And during the first 20 years of the XXI century the population has tripled (from a million to 3,355,900).