Interdisciplinary in approach, this volume explores and deciphers the symbolic value and iconicity of the built environment in the Arab Gulf Region, its aesthetics, language and performative characteristics. Bringing together a range of studies by artists, curators and scholars, it demonstrates how Dubai appeared - at least until the financial crisis - to be leading the construction race and has already completed a large number of its landmark architecture and strategic facilities. In contrast, cities like the Qatari capital Doha still appear to be heavily 'under construction' and in countries like the Sultanate of Oman, ultra-luxury tourism projects were started only recently. While the construction of artificial islands, theme parks and prestige sport facilities has attracted considerable attention, much less is known about the region's widespread implementation of innovative infrastructure such as global container ports, free zones, inter-island causeways and metro lines. This volume argues that these endeavours are not simply part of a strategy to prepare for the post-oil era for future economic survival and prosperity in the Lower Gulf region, but that they are also aiming to strengthen identitarian patterns and specific national brands. In doing so, they exhibit similar, yet remarkably diverse modes of engaging with certain global trends and present - questionably - distinct ideas for putting themselves on the global map. Each country aims to grab attention with regard to the world-wide flow of goods and capital and thus provide its own citizens with a socially acceptable trajectory for the future. By doing that, the countries in the Gulf are articulating a new semiotic and paradigm of urban development. For the first time, this volume maps these trends in their relation to architecture and infrastructure, in particular by treating them as semiotics in their own right. It suggests that recent developments in this region of the world not only represen
Steffen Wippel is a Senior Research Fellow at the Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO), Berlin. In parallel, he worked at the Department for the Economy and Social Geography of the Arab World at the University of Leipzig from 2008 to 2011. His main research interests are issues of economic and more recently urban development in North Africa and the Gulf region. He is (co-)editor of several publications as well as of a series of working papers and a book series on Middle Eastern economics. Among his books is Regionalizing Oman: Political, Economic and Social Dynamics (ed., Springer 2013). Katrin Bromber received her PhD in African Linguistics from the University of Leipzig, Germany and her habilitation degree in African Studies from the University of Vienna, Austria. She is currently working on the social history of sports in Ethiopia and the Gulf states. Katrin Bromber is a senior researcher and research group leader at the Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO) in Berlin. Her books include Sports Across Asia. Politics, Cultures, and Identities (2013), which she co-edited with Birgit Krawietz and Joseph Maguire. Christian Steiner holds a PhD in geography from the University of Mainz and a habilitation from the Goethe Universität, Frankfurt am Main, Germany. His research interests focus on the intersection of philosophy of science, economic geography, political economy and tourism. He worked as a Lecturer at the University of Mainz, headed a UNWTO and ILO study of the impact of the global economic crisis on the tourism industry and was invited as Visiting Professor to the University of Frankfurt. Currently, Christian Steiner is Visiting Professor at the Department of Geography at the University of OsnabrÃ1/4ck, Germany. Among his publications is Tourismuskrisen und organisationales Lernen. Akteursstrategien in der Hotelwirtschaft der Arabischen Welt. Eine Pragmatische Geographie (Transcript, 2009). Birgit Krawietz is Professor of Islamic Studies at the Freie Universität Berlin. She earned her PhD in Islamic studies from the University of Freiburg and her habilitation degree at the University of TÃ1/4bingen, Germany. She has published on Islamic medical ethics, legal theory and, lately also, sports in the Islamic world. Her overall research interests are normative Islam and cultural history. Recently, she co-edited, with Katrin Bromber and Joseph Maguire, Sport Across Asia (Routledge, 2013), and, with Georges Tamer, Islamic Theology, Philosophy and Law: Debating Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya (de Gruyter, 2013).
