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Dubai's ruler will literally leave his fingerprint on the city with new supertall tower

That's Going to Smudge

Dubai's ruler will literally leave his fingerprint on the city with new supertall tower

Not content with only 13 supertall towers, including Santiago Calatrava’s 3,000-plus-foot-tall Dubai Creek Tower, the state-owned Dubai Holding has revealed plans for the 1,804-foot-tall Burj Jumeira. The split-volume tower, which will feature a large void between its two curvilinear masses (resembling an elongated take on Zaha Hadid Architects’ Macau Hotel), will erupt from a pond emblazoned with the fingerprint of Dubai’s ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum.

Rendering of a tower and mixed-use complex
The split-volume tower will anchor the new Downtown Jumeira neighborhood. (Dubai Media Office)

The Burj Jumeira, not to be confused with the nearby Burj Al Arab Jumeirah hotel, will be springing up in a new mixed-use neighborhood in Dubai’s Al Sufouh area. “Downtown Jumeira” will hold a mix of residential, office, and commercial buildings, hotels, an amphitheater, space for artists and cultural events, and, judging from the video released by the Dubai Media Office, a fountain inside the fingerprint pool.

The tower itself, whose design was reportedly inspired by shifting sand dunes, will be wrapped in an enormous digital screen capable of lighting up the entire building. A sky lounge and restaurant will round out the 360-degree observation deck planned at 1,476 feet up, and the tower is expected to be a major draw for tourists.

The reveal comes before the World Expo 2020 Dubai, as the United Arab Emirates city ramps up its architecture bona fides, an effort that created the world’s largest picture frame. Work on the Burj Jumeira began on January 31, the same day it was announced, and Dubai Holding expects the first phase of the project to be complete in 2023. No cost projection has been released yet, but the New York office of SOM will handle the tower’s design and engineering, as well as the development of the Downtown Jumeira master plan.


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