Showpiece City

Showpiece City PDF Author: Todd Reisz
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 1503613860
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 514

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Book Description
Staggering skylines and boastful architecture make Dubai famous—this book traces them back to a twentieth-century plan for survival. In 1959, experts agreed that if Dubai was to become something more than an unruly port, a plan was needed. Specifically, a town plan was prescribed to fortify the city from obscurity and disorder. With the proverbial handshake, Dubai's ruler hired British architect John Harris to design Dubai's strategy for capturing the world's attention—and then its investments. Showpiece City recounts the story of how Harris and other hired professionals planned Dubai's spectacular transformation through the 1970s. Drawing on exclusive interviews, private archives, dog-eared photographs, and previously overlooked government documents, Todd Reisz reveals the braggadocio and persistence that sold Dubai as a profitable business plan. Architecture made that plan something to behold. Reisz highlights initial architectural achievements—including the city's first hospital, national bank, and skyscraper—designed as showpieces to proclaim Dubai's place on the world stage. Reisz explores the overlooked history of a skyline that did not simply rise from the sands. In the city's earliest modern architecture, he finds the foundations of an urban survival strategy of debt-wielding brinkmanship and constant pitch making. Dubai became a testing ground for the global city—and prefigured how urbanization now happens everywhere.

Showpiece City

Showpiece City PDF Author: Todd Reisz
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 1503613860
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 514

Get Book Here

Book Description
Staggering skylines and boastful architecture make Dubai famous—this book traces them back to a twentieth-century plan for survival. In 1959, experts agreed that if Dubai was to become something more than an unruly port, a plan was needed. Specifically, a town plan was prescribed to fortify the city from obscurity and disorder. With the proverbial handshake, Dubai's ruler hired British architect John Harris to design Dubai's strategy for capturing the world's attention—and then its investments. Showpiece City recounts the story of how Harris and other hired professionals planned Dubai's spectacular transformation through the 1970s. Drawing on exclusive interviews, private archives, dog-eared photographs, and previously overlooked government documents, Todd Reisz reveals the braggadocio and persistence that sold Dubai as a profitable business plan. Architecture made that plan something to behold. Reisz highlights initial architectural achievements—including the city's first hospital, national bank, and skyscraper—designed as showpieces to proclaim Dubai's place on the world stage. Reisz explores the overlooked history of a skyline that did not simply rise from the sands. In the city's earliest modern architecture, he finds the foundations of an urban survival strategy of debt-wielding brinkmanship and constant pitch making. Dubai became a testing ground for the global city—and prefigured how urbanization now happens everywhere.

Everyday Life in the Spectacular City

Everyday Life in the Spectacular City PDF Author: Rana AlMutawa
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520395050
Category : Belonging (Social psychology)
Languages : en
Pages : 293

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Book Description
Everyday Life in the Spectacular City is a groundbreaking urban ethnography that reveals how middle-class citizens and longtime residents of Dubai interact with the city's so-called superficial spaces to create meaningful social lives. Rana AlMutawa shows that inhabitants adapt themselves to top-down development projects, from big malls to megaprojects. These structures serve residents' evolving social needs, transforming Dubai's spectacular spaces into personally important cultural sites. These practices are significant because they expand our understanding of agency as not only subversive but also adaptive. Through extensive fieldwork, AlMutawa, herself an Emirati native to Dubai, finds a more nuanced story of belonging. This story does not seek to uncover the "real" city that lies beneath the veneer of the spectacle, but rather to demonstrate that social meanings and forms of belonging take place within the spectacle itself. By offering an alternative to the discourse of authenticity and elucidating the dynamics of ambivalent belonging, AlMutawa belies stereotypes that portray Dubai's developments as alienating and inherently disempowering. Everyday Life in the Spectacular City speaks beyond the Middle East to a globalized phenomenon, for Dubai's spectacles are unexceptional in today's changing world.

Building Sharjah

Building Sharjah PDF Author: Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi
Publisher: Birkhäuser
ISBN: 3035622779
Category : Architecture
Languages : de
Pages : 440

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Book Description
Building Sharjah reveals how modern architecture unfurled across the United Arab Emirates’ third-largest city. An oil discovery in 1972 positioned Sharjah as one of the world’s final cities shaped by transformative fortune. In the footsteps of Kuwait, Riyadh, and Dubai, Sharjah faced a metamorphosis: either one that repeated the past’s mistakes or one that reimagined how wealth can build a city. Sharjah’s potential enticed an international cast of experts to create a bold, new city. As their projects begin to vanish, this book preserves them through unseen photographs and recovered documents. New writing chronicles how local and arriving residents arranged the designed, concrete environment into a home. Beyond just a local artifact, this book examines the confident promises made by global practices of urbanization.

Don’t Go There

Don’t Go There PDF Author: Adam Fletcher
Publisher: Adam Fletcher
ISBN:
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 263

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Book Description
How much would you risk to change your life? Would you go where everyone else is trying to leave? Bestselling author Adam Fletcher did… In this unusual, hilarious travel memoir, he visits ten of the strangest places on earth. There's something he wants to know. Something no-one is telling him. To find the answer he’ll enter a blizzard in China armed with only a pack of biscuits; ponder the apocalypse in Chernobyl; be chased by the Croatian police on his way to Liberland (the world’s newest country); stalk the Sheriff of Transnistria (its most corrupt); and come face-to-face with two (dead) dictators in North Korea (its most dystopian), and much more. Packed full of interesting characters, unusual destinations, and British humour, this is an unforgettable journey with an award-winning travel writer that’s a mixture of Paul Theroux, Bill Bryson, and Douglas Adams. But this quest to understand the world (and himself) will also threaten his sanity, safety and relationship to his eccentric German girlfriend, Annett. Will he make it back safely? Will anyone be waiting when he does? What do you give the dictator that has everything? Discover the answer in Don’t Go There… The books in this series can be read in any order.

101 Hikes in Southern California

101 Hikes in Southern California PDF Author: Jerry Schad
Publisher: Wilderness Press
ISBN: 0899977162
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 294

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Book Description
Trek the diverse terrain of Southern California, from desert to beach to mountaintop, on an easy stroll or overnight adventure, with this ultimate guide to the 101 best hikes in the Southland. Covers the Santa Monica, San Gabriel, San Jacinto, and San Bernardino mountains, and the Mojave and Colorado deserts. This updated and revised edition of one of our best-selling guidebooks includes 12 new hikes and updated information for hikes from the previous edition. All trips have been rehiked for this update. Each trip includes a map, photos, trail highlights, and symbols to tell you the basics of the trip at a glance. Each map now includes key GPS coordinates.

On Admiration

On Admiration PDF Author: W. D. Wetherell
Publisher: Skyhorse
ISBN: 1628731303
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 285

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Book Description
In a refreshing departure from today’s celebrity worship cultivated by reality television, tabloid photos, and celebrity twittering, award-winning novelist W. D. Wetherell's On Admiration celebrates the heroes and heroines who have peopled his life from his earliest years. Writers, singers, presidents, athletes, cartoonists, artists, activists, and many more are examined here—from Henry David Thoreau to Willa Cather to Albert Camus to Dwight D. Eisenhower to Winston Churchill to Beverly Sills—in this humorous, insightful memoir that speaks powerfully about the state of fame, celebrity culture, and honest admiration. Wetherell skillfully reminds us of the magic and mystery that comes with slow discovery—of that first awareness of those figures who awoke something within us, that inspired us as children, teenagers, and adults—forever altering the landscape of ourselves. From visiting Herman Melville’s study where Melville wrote Moby Dick to being a Rangers fan living in NYC—Wetherell examines the meaning of the American cultural landscape—and its remnants—in a candid and personal memoir like no other before him. With this lively and exacting series of pop culture essays, Wetherell joins the ranks of David Foster Wallace, Jonathan Franzen, and Chuck Klosterman.

Insight Guides Russia (Travel Guide eBook)

Insight Guides Russia (Travel Guide eBook) PDF Author: Insight Guides
Publisher: Apa Publications (UK) Limited
ISBN: 1839052376
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 606

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Book Description
Insight Guides Russia Travel made easy. Ask local experts. Comprehensive travel guide packed with inspirational photography and fascinating cultural insights. From deciding when to go, to choosing what to see when you arrive, this guide to Russia is all you need to plan your perfect trip, with insider information on must-see, top attractions like St Basil's, the Kremlin and Red Square, and cultural gems like wandering around Kizhi's magnificent churches, exploring the vast Lake Baikal and riding the epic Trans-Siberian Railway. Features of this travel guide to Russia: - Inspirational colour photography: discover the best destinations, sights and excursions, and be inspired by stunning imagery - Historical and cultural insights: immerse yourself in Russia's rich history and culture, and learn all about its people, art and traditions - Practical full-colour maps: with every major sight and listing highlighted, the full-colour maps make on-the-ground navigation easy - Editor's Choice: uncover the best of Russia with our pick of the region's top destinations - Key tips and essential information: packed full of important travel information, from transport and tipping to etiquette and hours of operation - Covers: Moscow; The Golden Ring; St Petersburg; The European North; Southwest of Moscow; Along the Volga; The Urals; The European South; Siberia; Russian Far East Looking for a specific guide to Moscow? Check out City Guide Moscow for a detailed and entertaining look at all the city has to offer. About Insight Guides: Insight Guides is a pioneer of full-colour guide books, with almost 50 years' experience of publishing high-quality, visual travel guides with user-friendly, modern design. We produce around 400 full-colour print guide books and maps, as well as phrase books, picture-packed eBooks and apps to meet different travellers' needs. Insight Guides' unique combination of beautiful travel photography and focus on history and culture create a unique visual reference and planning tool to inspire your next adventure.

Hubbing for Tourists

Hubbing for Tourists PDF Author: Evan R. Ward
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3111326640
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 234

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Book Description
Dubai International Airport (DXB), Emirates Airlines, and the Burj al-Arab. Changi International Airport (SIN), Singapore Airlines, and Marina Bay Sands. Chek Lap Kok (HGK), Cathay Pacific, and The Peninsula Hotel. Kingsford Smith (SYD), Qantas Airlines, and the Wentworth Hotel. What do these collective entities have in common? Not only do they link global air hubs with city-centric long-haul airlines and destination-worthy hotels, but they are the product of a distinct strategy to boost tourism development through the synergies created by aviation development. This volume explores the evolution of tourism development through synergies created by airline, airport, and hotel development in the Persian Gulf (namely Dubai); Southeast Asia (primarily Singapore); and East Asia (mainly Hong Kong) during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. These "hubs" included, but went beyond traditional models of hotel development as models for economically viable tourism programs, particularly after World War II. The book also examines how such systems integrated travelers, airlines, and airports in Australasia and Europe, while at the same time competing with imperial systems of airport and airline development. This book illuminates the strategies behind and competition between cities during the current century for air traffic, tourists, and airlines transiting between Europe, Southeast Asia, and Australasia.

The Cambridge Ancient History

The Cambridge Ancient History PDF Author: Alan K. Bowman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521264303
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 1228

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Book Description
The period described in Volume X of the second edition of The Cambridge Ancient History begins in the year after the death of Julius Caesar and ends in the year after the fall of Nero, the last of the Julio-Claudian emperors. Its main theme is the transformation of the political configuration of the state and the establishment of the Roman Empire. Chapters 16 supply a political narrative history of the period. In chapters 7-12 the institutions of government are described and analysed. Chapters 13-14 offer a survey of the Roman world in this period region by region, and chapters 15-21 deal with the most important social and cultural developments of the era (the city of Rome; the structure of society; art, literature and law). Central to the period is the achievement of the first emperor, Augustus.

Art in the Age of Anxiety

Art in the Age of Anxiety PDF Author: Omar Kholeif
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 1907071806
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 428

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Book Description
Artists and writers examine the bombardment of information, misinformation, emotion, deception, and secrecy in online and offline life in the post-digital age. Every day we are bombarded by information, misinformation, emotion, deception, and secrecy in our online and offline lives. How does the never-ending flow of data affect our powers of perception and decision making? This richly illustrated and boldly designed collection of essays and artworks investigates visual culture in the post-digital age. The essays, by such leading cultural thinkers as Douglas Coupland and W. J. T. Mitchell, consider topics that range from the future of money to the role of art in a post-COVID-19 world; from mental health in the digital age to online grieving; and from the mediation of visual culture to the thickening of the digital sphere. Accompanying an ambitious exhibition conceived by the Sharjah Art Foundation and volume editor and curator Omar Kholeif, the book is a work of art and a labor of love, emulating the labyrinthine corridors of the exhibition itself. Created by a group of writers, artists, designers, photographers, and publishers, Art in the Age of Anxiety calls upon us to consider what our collective future will be and how humanity will adapt to it.