Para-scape: landscape architecture in Dubai: Fid-Bau Portal

Para-scape: landscape architecture in Dubai

Bolleter, Julian

This paper explores the role of landscape architecture in the city state of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) [1]. Landscape architecture in Dubai is generally regarded as a benign force, but is a nonetheless important component of constructing Dubai's global image and legitimising its socio-political hierarchy. Landscape, in broad terms, is analysed through the lens of Para-Scape: a landscape derived from Koranic depictions of paradise.

A survey of a range of landscape architectural projects leads to identification of the dominant landscape architectural typologies that underlie and illuminate the ways in which culture and nature are perceived in Dubai. Primarily, landscape architecture in Dubai is enlisted to serve two grand narratives: the paradisiacal image of greening the desert (Para-Scape), and making the city more attractive to global capital. The paper reveals and examines the way landscape is used within the city to serve these larger narratives. Comparing the work being carried out in Dubai with the tenets of the various charters of the International Federation of Landscape Architects (IFLA), it becomes apparent that what is happening is Dubai presents a fascinating discrepancy between theory and prac tice[2]. As the handmaiden of global capital with, apparently, scant regard for pressing ecological and social issues, landscape architec ture in Dubai is arguably in a state of crisis. This paper explores this crisis in physical and theoretical terms – not in order to pass definitive judgement on landscape architecture in Dubai but better understand the complexity of what would otherwise appear a superficial situation. What is happening in Dubai is interesting precisely because it so blatantly affronts IFLA's ideals.