{"id":434,"date":"2018-02-23T11:44:12","date_gmt":"2018-02-23T10:44:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/?p=434"},"modified":"2018-02-23T11:44:12","modified_gmt":"2018-02-23T10:44:12","slug":"not-the-end-of-the-world-the-return-of-dubais-ultimate-folly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/?p=434","title":{"rendered":"Not the end of The World: the return of Dubai’s ultimate folly"},"content":{"rendered":"

I<\/span><\/span>had the whole of Palestine to myself that day. It was only a short swim from Lebanon but, as I waded ashore out of the shallow, soupy water, it became clear that I was the only visitor the island had seen for some time. Clambering to the top of the hill, over a lunar landscape populated by the occasional piece of driftwood and the odd discarded beer bottle, I could see the sandy mounds of Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Ethiopia beyond, rising out of the sea like bobbing croutons. The gleaming spire of the\u00a0Burj Khalifa<\/a>\u00a0twinkled through the haze on the distant horizon.<\/p>\n

A decade since it was dredged from the seabed,\u00a0The World<\/a>\u00a0is a forlorn sight. It was the most ambitious plan of Dubai\u2019s pre-crash bubble, topping the creation of\u00a0peninsulas shaped like palm trees<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0construction of the tallest building on the planet<\/a>, dreamed up as the ultimate trophy project to trump them all. In pursuit of the world\u2019s attention, the oil-rich emirate would remake the world itself. \u201cThe Palm puts Dubai on the map,\u201d proclaimed the marketing material at the time. \u201cThe World puts the map on Dubai.\u201d<\/p>\n

Conceived in 2003, the project was to be an exclusive offshore playground for film stars, royalty and celebrity tycoons: an artificial archipelago of 300 islands set two miles off the coast. Invitations to \u201cOwn the World\u201d were sent to a targeted group of 50 potential buyers each year, offering tours of the site by yacht or helicopter, with prices for the islands ranging from $15-50m (\u00a310-36m). Richard Branson posed for photos on little Britain in a Union Jack suit; Karl Lagerfeld launched plans for a fashion-themed island; rumours swirled that\u00a0Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie had acquired Ethiopia<\/a>\u00a0for their ever-expanding clan of adopted children.<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n

Trees won\u2019t be the only things bobbing in the water. Given the high premium on land, his firm is developing plans for entire floating islands,\u00a0beginning with Venice<\/a>. Gondolas will weave between modern palazzos, set around a swimming pool proportioned to match St Mark\u2019s Square, while underwater bedrooms and restaurants will provide views on to a new coral reef. He says they have already established a coral nursery on one of the islands, and plan to cultivate oyster beds too, with pearl-diving added to the list of attractions on offer.<\/p>\n

Wading through the murky water today, it is hard to believe the Photoshopped visions of people frolicking among shoals of exotic fish in a crystal-clear lagoon, lounging in their underwater lairs or playing in the snow. Kleindienst says the entire development and its 4,000 bedrooms will be completed in time for the\u00a0Dubai Expo in 2020<\/a>, which seems impossibly tight. He insists that most of the Floating Seahorse villas have been sold, promising investors a guaranteed yield of 8% over five years; but these figures are hard to take seriously when current prime residential property yields in Dubai stand at around 5%. Nor might it be of particular encouragement to investors that one of Kleindienst\u2019s structures\u00a0recently sank<\/a>\u00a0following a New Year\u2019s Eve party.<\/p>\n

For all the hype, industry insiders raise their eyebrows at the idea that The World is back on track. \u201cWhen you go into these marketing suites, it feels like 2007 all over again,\u201d says Dubai-based architect Sara Anwar, who was involved with Karl Lagerfeld\u2019s plans for a fashion island,\u00a0Isla Moda<\/a>, before the financial crisis hit. The project, developed by Dubai Infinity Holdings, was to include a fashion resort, themed residential villas, haute couture boutiques and luxury hospitality facilities, all aimed at ultra-high net worth individuals (or UHNWIs as they are known \u2013 an acronym that, when pronounced, sounds appropriately like \u201cunwise\u201d).<\/p>\n

Source\u00a0https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/cities\/2018\/feb\/13\/not-end-the-world-return-dubai-ultimate-folly<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ihad the whole of Palestine to myself that day. It was only a short swim from Lebanon but, as I waded ashore out of the shallow, soupy water, it became clear that I was the only visitor the island had seen for some time. Clambering to the top of the hill, over a lunar landscape […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":435,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=434"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":436,"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434\/revisions\/436"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}