Flashes of Thought by Maktoum Mohammed bin;

Author:Maktoum, Mohammed bin;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Profile Books

19

The Burj Khalifa

Take pride in the scale of your ambitions. Have faith in your ability to execute them.

Why did we want to build the tallest tower in the world? Why aspire to such a difficult feat of engineering and construction? The Burj Khalifa is indeed more than just a construction project. It is a story to which thousands of people have contributed and a powerful symbol of progress in our nation.

The drawings that I first received were for an 80-storey tower surrounded by a few smaller buildings, as well as gardens and green spaces. I concluded the first meeting with the project team without commenting on the plans, so the project team knew they would have to do better. They returned a month later with a new plan; still it was not the best.

I told them: “I want the tallest building that man has ever made, on this spot. We want it to be the biggest and the best, with the best gardens and fountains, and with hotels and markets that are also the biggest and the best. We want to build the greatest neighbourhood ever known to man.”

Today, Downtown Burj Khalifa is a city at the heart of a city, circled by an avenue that is considered among the most elegant in the world. It offers the biggest mall and the tallest water fountain in the world. It contains grand hotels, luxury restaurants and residential towers home to thousands of people. Downtown Burj Khalifa has become a key landmark for all visitors to Dubai and the UAE. The tower turned out to be grand and magnificent, so we chose to name it after a great figure, hence the name “Burj Khalifa”, in honour of our President, Sheikh Khalifa.

Foreign officials and the media sometimes ask us why we chose to make it the tallest building. They wonder whether Dubai really benefited from building a tower that cost over US$1.5 billion and as part of an overall project costing US$20 billion. In answer to their questions, I would like to clarify the following three points:

First, building the tallest tower on earth is a national accomplishment, a historic milestone and a key economic turning point. It is a symbol of pride, not only to the Emirati people, but to all Arabs. Four thousand years ago, the tallest buildings known to man were found in our region: Egypt’s pyramids were a source of pride and a symbol of the advancement of civilisation. They remained so for millennia until surpassed in height by Lincoln Cathedral in the UK, whose creation marked a new era of civilisation. Today, I hope that Burj Khalifa symbolises the new global changes taking place: a new world where East meets West, where civilisations come together and where human creativity reigns with no heed to geographic, ethnic or religious boundaries.

Thousands of engineers, workers, consultants and others from all over the world worked together to construct this impressive building, and new techniques were used for the first time to reach such heights.

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