As a lover of majestic architecture, I am acutely conflicted, because many of the most amazing building projects on the planet are taking place in Dubai, a location where conditions for workers are uncomfortably close to those of ancient Egypt. Is it possible to foresee a time when a progressive egalitarian society might produce brilliant, stately, inspiring structures?
Who would not marvel, as I have, when standing at the feet of the great pyramids in Giza? Can any but the most jaded fail to be awed by the Eiffel Tower, the Taj Mahal, or the Palace of Versailles?
We still wonder today how structures such as Stonehenge, the statues of Easter Island, and the Great Wall of China could have been built by mere men using simple tools. Of course, we know that more often than not, slave labor—or something close to it—performed the decades of agonizing, sometimes killing, heavy work.
In the case of more modern wonders, it’s usually true that they were built from the top down, so to speak, financed and directed by those who had substantial capital or political power, or both.
Look at the greatest architectural treasures of the United States. From the Empire State Building to the Golden Gate Bridge to the graceful antebellum mansions of the Mississippi Valley, none could have been raised without significant financing and authoritarian control.
Does that knowledge necessarily lessen our appreciation for the intrinsic beauty or grandeur of such constructions? It doesn’t have to, although an understanding of the hardships suffered by those who performed the real labor can give us a different perspective.
As a lover of majestic architecture, I am acutely conflicted, because many of the most amazing building projects on the planet are taking place in Dubai, a location where conditions for workers are uncomfortably close to those of ancient Egypt.
Burj Dubai
Palm Islands
Nakheel Tower
Would I prefer that political and economic systems were different in Dubai, more enlightened, even if that meant that such visionary wonders as the Burj Dubai, the Palm Islands, or the Nakheel Tower might never get built? Of course I would, but part of me still would regret that their sheer beauty is denied to the world.
Is it possible to foresee a time when a progressive egalitarian society might produce brilliant, stately, and inspiring architecture? We know that beauty is not wholly confined to authoritarian or oligarchical systems: witness the Sydney Opera House or the incredible Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain. But there does seem to be a barrier of top-down organization and capital that effectively limits the size and majesty of structures created by what we could consider enlightened societies.
If you look a little deeper into this conundrum, you’ll see that it’s not just architecture that is affected. In fact, that’s just a symbol of a greater, more challenging philosophical problem that I’ll write about in my next IEET article.
IEET Blog