This is part five of the series Four Cautionary Tales for Abu Dhabi. Click Here, to read more about the series and access the other parts.
Each of the four stories in parts 1-4 explore a project in Abu Dhabi that is utopian in one main way. The stories start with real places, real plans, and real architecture, but then turn up the—already existing—utopian drive to a maximum. What results is both utterly ridiculous and—paradoxically—a reasonable extrapolation of the radical premises upon which these real projects were based. The ‘natural’ conclusions of unnatural circumstances are, by definition, unnatural.
This is how the four projects are utopian: Saadiyat tries to be the epicenter of art and culture. The Sheikh Zayed Mosque wants to be the ultimate house of god. Masdar pushes sustainable urbanism to the end of what current technology allows. The Emirates Palace flaunts the utmost luxury money can buy. One might here ask: does this mean that any ambitious and daring project is automatically utopian? No, because ‘utopian’ here means something more specific. These four projects are utopian because they don’t just try to excel in comparison to other projects with similar programs, but rather attempt to be the biggest, the most, and the best—to be ultimate. Also, these projects are not gradual developments or organic growths of their contexts; instead, they appear suddenly and fully formed.
Edward Rothstein provides another way to understand this distinction. In an explanation of the differences between utopianism and liberalism, Rothstein writes that liberalism “grows out of experience, it acknowledges ambiguity and complication, and it refuses to seek perfection.” Furthermore, it “does not believe in absolutes; it believes in accommodation and adjustment.” [1] A utopian project is the opposite of this.
Instead of growing out of experience, the utopian is conceived in its final form, an instant grand plan. Instead of acknowledging ambiguity and complication, the utopian simplifies the world, ignores alternative routes, and presents a single course of action. Instead of refusing to seek perfection, the utopian fully embraces it, flirts with its allure, and adopts its imagery. Finally, instead of believing in accommodation and adjustment, the utopian is born utopian, and therefore perfect and unalterable.
But life isn't perfect, and neither is architecture. The projects in the above stories intervene in fields that are complicated, such as art, sustainability, spirituality, and hospitality. Because of this complexity, things can easily go wrong, despite the positive intentions (let’s assume) behind the projects. Mega projects aiming to produce mega effects can easily produce unwanted side effects, and sometimes even become entirely counterproductive. This is where utopia's shadow, dystopia, enters the picture. The reason for this plunge from utopian aspiration to dystopian reality can be the faulty execution of the project: its short-sightedness, one-sidedness, excessiveness, or incompetence. But more disturbing is the realization that sometimes the only difference between a place that is perfect—utopia—and a place that is totally intolerable—dystopia—is a shift in one’s perspective.
[1] Rothstein, Edward. “Utopia and Its Discontents.” In Visions of Utopia, edited by Edward Rothstein, Herbert Muschamp, and Martin E. Marty, 11. Oxford University Press, 2003.
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