In Conversation with Cristiano Luchetti

This transcript is an excerpt of a conversation between Saad Boujane (MAUD ’23), Elyjana Roach (MAUD ’22) and Cristiano Luchetti.

Cristiano Luchetti is an architect, researcher, and educator. For several years, Cristiano taught architectural and urban design for universities in the Middle East. As a professional, he led the design of large-scale projects in residential, commercial, and hospitality sectors in Europe, China, India, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. He was one of the founders of Laboratorio Architettura Nomade, a non-profit association for the research and diffusion of art and architecture. As Associate Editor of the magazine Compasses Architecture & Design, Cristiano writes about the architecture and urban development of the Middle East. He co-curated the Egyptian pavilion at the 2018 Architecture Venice Biennale. The pavilion was shortlisted in the World Architecture Festival 2018 Display Built Projects category and won the Honor Award at Cairo Design Award 2018.

Saad Boujane (SB):

How is urban design being conceived within the context of the Middle East and how does this influence your approach to broader urban issues in the UAE and globally?

Cristiano Luchetti (CL):

In professional practice, one deals with the real world. It can sometimes be inspiring or can limit your visions and aspirations. I stopped working as a professional architect for a while because of those issues. That does not mean that I have lost interest in the fundamental problems of the region, the profession, and the current role of architects. I am often suspicious when I encounter academic exercises promoting architecture as a sort of self-discipline often disconnected from real issues. The artistic approach in architecture is fascinating, it can be very sophisticated, yet I find it somehow too easy. It often overlooks the constraints that set architecture as the most challenging discipline among the artistic ones. Indeed, the difficult part is to find solutions to objective, tangible, and above all, real issues concerning the research of new typologies, production of exciting spaces, solving urban problems, and looking for possible qualitative futures of urban contexts and their societies. This influences my approach to teaching studios that focus on the urban scale. I always look for a specific, realistic case that may inform the university's mission. A university is not only a space to learn but also, and even more, to research. In the case of Architecture schools, the goal should be to engage with their territories, potentially producing the sort of research and ideas that would fit in those contexts. As it often happens in this region, not doing so would prevent students from understanding their surroundings. It is an issue because, as architects, we must learn from specific contexts, even the most alien to us, to provide proper and feasible architectural solutions. In the end, it is an ethical paradigm that we should not forget to address in our work.

SB:

Students, especially in undergraduate studies, are often concerned with the production of a singular building and lack a critical understanding of broader urban issues. Do you believe enough emphasis is given on urban design in architectural education?

CL:

First, we must consider that, around the world, the culture of urbanism is different. In certain places, urbanism is critical within academia. In other, it is much less. For instance, in the North American tradition, the layout of the typical urban grid imposes a rigorous spatial framework. Somehow, it allows the building to be designed as a singular object and not as an osmotic contribution to the surrounding built environment; it is often designed on its own, ontologically, because of its own existence and natural relationships. For example, in Italy, where I am from, it is natural to begin the design process with a highly accurate urban analysis. In this view, urban design becomes the generator of such an architectural approach. Dubai instead provides an entirely different perspective on how urban design is conceived. The emirate is a proto-typing field, where architects and planners can continuously experiment due to the lack of opposing decisions that would slow or halt projects. If these experiments are successful, they are quickly transmitted into influencing new solutions around the Gulf and eventually into Asia and North Africa. Somehow, there is no need for a deep awareness of the built environment. In Dubai, the original, the spectacular, is more desirable than the suitable.

As you can see, the local context and its cultural prerogatives are fundamental in every aspect. It is the same concerning architectural education. It is crucial to acknowledge a traditional lack of local professors in the Gulf. Here, we usually find professors from different parts of the world who, at least at the beginning of their local academic journey, are not well informed on the contextual characteristics. Their responsibility should be to learn about where they operate eventually. However, such a task is not always well accomplished. Sometimes, local architecture schools become cultural strongholds where if students are very diverse, the faculty are segregated in their cultural background, avoiding undertaking a process of understanding the region's peculiar conditions. This issue pollutes the teaching of Urban Design because if one does not know the context will most likely not be able to design it adequately.

SB:

There has been an increasing focus on the production of public spaces in Dubai over the past years. Projects such as City Walk, or La Mer often attempt to flip the mall typology inside out and engage with their surroundings in unique ways. How do such developments fit within a heavily automobile-centric city? How do you anticipate public spaces will change Dubai as it looks toward its desert landscapes and less so along its waterfronts?

CL:

I recently wrote a paper entitled "Dubai Walk-in City: from an Infrastructural City to a Pedestrian, Polycentric City," highlighting the ongoing transformations of public spaces. I was particularly interested in this topic because of Dubai's relatively short history.

Dubai is not a Polis, a Greek city where the inhabitants participate in the city's development. The Greek citizens created their future discussing and promoting changes; they could initiate conflicts intimately related to the existence of urban public spaces. This scenario does not apply to Dubai because the city does not belong to the people but rather to one person. From this point of view, the notion of public space is radically different. In Dubai, public spaces, essentially, do not exist. There is managed space, leftover space, transitional space, informal space, and undeveloped space - the desert. Public space, as we mean, it traditionally does not exist. Instead, it is very much related to the American POPS; the privately owned public spaces. That is why one never sees buskers or spontaneous street performers in Dubai because if something is not planned, it is not allowed. Therefore, all the public spaces you've mentioned are not really public; they are private. Moreover, they are undertaking a process of transformation.

One of the earliest examples of such process is "The Beach," in the Marina area. In this specific location, the commercial pedestrianized strip at the base of the Jumeirah beach residences already existed. It served as a connection between the Marina canal and the beachfront. Therefore, it was a great location to experiment with new urban destination and build an outdoor, beach-themed shopping mall. Something different from the usual indoor fully air-conditioned shopping mall. It was a risky project but turned out to be very successful. During winters, the developer makes enough money to forget the poor occupancy happening in the hot summers. As it always happens, Dubai quickly learns from successes. In the next couple of years, multiple public space projects such as Al Seef, La Mer, and City Walk had emerged. This is now the current trend because developers realized that such projects are successful, even if they remain almost empty during the hot summer months. Of course, different developers adopt different strategies when it comes to densification.

Projects such as La Mer and Al Seef usually take advantage of suitable locations like the beachfront and the creek. Instead, City Walk attempts to replicate the nature of historical centers in Europe by implementing two attractive anchors (Piazzas) on either end of the development. This condition invites people to stroll from one end to another, instigating a certain level of curiosity. It is interesting because City Walk quickly became a favorite destination among the young locals. For once, they are not engaging publicly inside their cars but are somewhat outside and interacting with one another. I am curious to see what will happen in the near future, but, as I said, I believe this is now the trend because of how successful these projects have been.

SB:

What is the role of the desert in the urbanization of cities? How can cities such as Dubai and Sharjah leverage their peri-urban environments and the types of activities that occur in-between to expand upon their urban fabric, rather than developing cities from a Tabula Rasa, as is the case with Saudi Arabia’s Neom project?

CL:

Interestingly enough, even the desert landscapes differ in Dubai and Sharjah. For many years now, Sharjah has been the cultural capital of the Middle East, promoting events such as the Biennale organized by Sharjah Art Foundation. Dubai is completely different. Its economy is largely based on glamorous tourism and globalized finance. Such different identities also reflect on the nature of their desert side.

For instance, to understand the urban nature of Dubai's desert, one has to look at the master plans; the old masterplan of 2020 and the new masterplan of 2040. The document showed a constraint, a line beyond which the city could not grow. It only lasted for a few years. The city soon crossed that boundary in search of land suitable for affordable housing developments. The desert provides investors with a large amount of cheap land, aiding in the city's expansion. In Dubai, the city remains the focal point of urbanization, with some ancillary functions being relocated to the desert. Also, Sharjah's desert reflects the city's own identity, but being different from Dubai, it does it differently. At least in its remote regions, Sharjah sees the desert as a cultural landscape, and renowned architects were asked to design a few projects to support such a vision. If you ask me, what is the future of the desert? I hope it will be preserved as much as possible in its integrity. Sharjah had already started its massive expansion toward its peri-urban areas. The same goes for Dubai, which keeps expanding more and more in search of cheaper land. Urban developments occurring in such fragile landscapes should be limited and adopt strict sustainable strategies.

Elyjana Roach (ER):

How do you perceive Expo 2020 and its future development?

CL:

The Expo is massive, with hundreds of pavilions that you cannot complete in only one visit. It is fantastic, to say the least, because of how utopic it is. The natural location of the Expo was at Jebel Ali, an industrial area at the south end of the city that reaches the coastline and borders the territory of Abu Dhabi. It had to be close to the new Al Maktoum Airport, unbalancing the city's center toward that direction, almost blending Dubai and Abu Dhabi, whose identities are still very distinct. The infrastructure there is massive. It feels overdesigned, but this is undoubtedly an investment into the development of a new city enclave, Dubai South, to be supported by the presence of the new airport and the Expo. If they build Dubai South, there is no question that the Expo will have a future. I read that they will reuse 80% of the buildings, although I have not seen a residency plan yet.

In the past, similar examples such as Masdar City turned out to be relatively unsuccessful. The idea of placing autonomous and mono-functional urban entities in the middle of nowhere did not work very well. Nonetheless, the trends and the politics are changing. Dubai is always speedy in responding to social needs and global economic changes to facilitate its growth. Therefore, the questions remains: Can we genuinely predict a development's success? Did we foresee the 2008 financial crisis, where the credit crunch almost killed Dubai? Moreover, we did not see the pandemic coming. Therefore, can we really predict the success of the Expo and Dubai itself?

ER:

How do you think the pace of development changes these dynamics?

CL:

The initiative is private, but the ripple effect affects the global condition and vice-versa. It is swift for the city to lose its appeal and fall into an extreme crisis, but at the same time, it is speedy at picking itself back up. Dubai is unique in that sense. It is somehow connected, maybe too much, with the rest of the planet. We need to look at what happens worldwide to understand what will happen here in Dubai. It really depends on global conditions.

SB:

Could you briefly talk about your understanding of Heterotopia and how that fits in the context of Dubai?

CL:

The concept of Heterotopia comes from the French philosopher Michel Foucault. When we talk about Utopia, we do not talk about physical spaces, but rather about a particular character of the society, something that we can aspire to become, an ideal condition of our lives. Therefore, if we are interested in translating this concept into Architecture, we need a correspondent in the physical environment: a Heterotopia. It is about identifying physical moments of differences within a hegemonic spatial setting.

In my research, I was looking to figure out the philosophical identity of the city to decode its development and physical expressions better. I needed to borrow a theoretical apparatus, and Foucault, together with others, was a great help. The architectural and urban manifestations of Dubai are radically diverse. The private initiative and the speed of the urban growth promoted a plethora of different languages and spatial values not designed to establish organic relationships. Here, the concept of Heterotopia can help provide a conceptual framework that illustrates the notion of singular objects held together by the hegemonic state of the terrain-vague of the urban desert. It is another attempt to understand Dubai to design it better.