The Burj Al Arab ( ar, برج العرب, ''Arab Tower'') is a
luxury hotel
A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. Facilities provided inside a hotel room may range from a modest-quality mattress in a small room to large suites with bigger, higher-quality beds, a dresser, a ref ...
located in the city of
Dubai
Dubai (, ; ar, دبي, translit=Dubayy, , ) is the most populous city in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the capital of the Emirate of Dubai, the most populated of the 7 emirates of the United Arab Emirates.The Government and Politics of ...
,
United Arab Emirates
The United Arab Emirates (UAE; ar, اَلْإِمَارَات الْعَرَبِيَة الْمُتَحِدَة ), or simply the Emirates ( ar, الِْإمَارَات ), is a country in Western Asia ( The Middle East). It is located at t ...
. Managed by
Jumeirah
Jumeirah ( ar, جُمَيْرَا, Jumayrā Emirati pronunciation: ) is a coastal residential area of Dubai, United Arab Emirates mainly comprising low rise private dwellings and hotel developments. It has both expensive and large detached ...
hotel group, it is one of
the tallest hotels in the world, although 39% of its total height is made up of non-occupiable space. Burj Al Arab stands on an
artificial island
An artificial island is an island that has been constructed by people rather than formed by natural means. Artificial islands may vary in size from small islets reclaimed solely to support a single pillar of a building or structure to those th ...
that is from
Jumeirah Beach
Jumeira Beach is a white sand beach that is located and named after the Jumeirah district of Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on the coast of the Persian Gulf. It stretches along the coast south of the city's historic district to the junction with T ...
and is connected to the mainland by a private curving
bridge
A bridge is a structure built to span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or rail) without blocking the way underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, which is usually somethi ...
. The shape of the structure is designed to resemble the
sail of a
ship
A ship is a large watercraft that travels the world's oceans and other sufficiently deep waterways, carrying cargo or passengers, or in support of specialized missions, such as defense, research, and fishing. Ships are generally distinguished ...
. It has a
helipad near the roof, at a height of above ground.
Site
The beachfront area where Burj Al Arab and
Jumeirah Beach Hotel
Jumeirah Beach Hotel is a luxury hotel in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The hotel, which opened in 1997, is operated by the Dubai-based hotelier Jumeirah. The hotel contains 598 rooms and suites, 19 beachfront villas, and 20 restaurants and bars ...
are located was previously called
Chicago Beach.
[Krane, Jim ''City of Gold: Dubai and the Dream of Capitalism'', page 103, St. Martin's Press (15 September 2009)] The hotel is located on an island of
reclaimed land
Land reclamation, usually known as reclamation, and also known as land fill (not to be confused with a waste landfill), is the process of creating new land from oceans, seas, riverbeds or lake beds. The land reclaimed is known as reclamati ...
, offshore of the beach of the former ''Chicago Beach Hotel''. The former hotel was demolished during the construction of the Burj Al Arab.
The locale's name had its origins in the
Chicago Bridge & Iron Company
CB&I is a large engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) company with its administrative headquarters in The Woodlands, Texas. CB&I specializes in projects for oil and gas companies. CB&I employs more than 32,000 people worldwide. In May ...
, which at one time welded giant floating oil storage tanks, known locally as ''Kazzans'', on the site.
Design and construction
The Burj Al Arab was designed by the multidisciplinary consultancy
Atkins Atkins may refer to:
Places in the United States
* Atkins, Arkansas, a city
* Atkins, Iowa, a city
* Atkins, Louisiana, an unincorporated community
* Atkins, Nebraska, an unincorporated community
* Atkins, Virginia, a census-designated place
* ...
, led by architect
Tom Wright. The design and construction were managed by Canadian engineer Rick Gregory, also of WS Atkins. Construction of the island began in 1994 and involved up to 2,000 construction workers during peak construction. It was built to resemble the billowing spinnaker sail of a
J-class yacht
A J-Class yacht (sometimes called a "J-boat") is a single-masted racing yacht built to the specifications of Nathanael Herreshoff's Universal Rule. The J-Class are considered the peak racers of the era when the Universal Rule determined eligib ...
. Two "wings" spread in a V to form a vast "mast", while the space between them is enclosed in a massive atrium. The setting of a high rise building on saturated soil and the novelty of the project required groundbreaking dynamic analysis and design to take into consideration soil-structure interaction, effect of water, high winds, and helipad among other loads, to help finalize the design and take the project into construction .
The hotel was built by
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...
n construction contractor
Murray & Roberts
Murray & Roberts Holdings Ltd. is a South African-based engineering and mining contractor. It is listed on the JSE Securities Exchange. The Group delivers its capabilities into three global primary market sectors the resources, industrial, ene ...
, now renamed
Concor
Concor Holdings (Proprietary) Limited. is a South African construction and mining services company. It is active throughout Southern Africa, involved in mining, civil engineering, building and road projects. Concor returned as an independent br ...
and Al Habtoor Engineering. The interior designs were led and created by Khuan Chew and John Coralan of KCA international and delivered by UAE based
Depa Group
Depa PLC is a publicly listed interior construction and manufacturing firm headquartered in Dubai, UAE. Established in 1996 and listed on the Nasdaq Dubai. The firm provides interior construction services and joinery manufacturing for construc ...
.
The building opened on 1 December 1999.
The hotel's helipad was designed by Irish architect Rebecca Gernon. The helipad is above the building's 59th floor, and has been used as a car race track, a boxing ring, a tennis match, and the jumping off point for the highest kite surfing jump in history.
Features
Several features of the hotel required complex engineering feats to achieve. The hotel rests on an artificial island constructed offshore. To secure a foundation, the builders drove 230 concrete
piles into the sand by drilling method.
Engineers created a ground surface layer of large rocks, which is circled with a concrete
honeycomb
A honeycomb is a mass of hexagonal prismatic wax cells built by honey bees in their nests to contain their larvae and stores of honey and pollen.
Beekeepers may remove the entire honeycomb to harvest honey. Honey bees consume about of honey ...
pattern, which serves to protect the foundation from erosion. It took three years to
reclaim
Reclaim, reclaimed, reclaimer, reclaiming or reclamation means "to get something back".
It may refer to:
* Land reclamation, creating new land from oceans, riverbeds, or lake beds
* Dedesertification, reversing of the land degradation in arid ...
the land from the sea, while it took fewer than three years to construct the building itself. The building contains over of concrete and 9,000 tons of steel, one of which are for the skeletal structural frames.
Inside the building, the
atrium
Atrium may refer to:
Anatomy
* Atrium (heart), an anatomical structure of the heart
* Atrium, the genital structure next to the genital aperture in the reproductive system of gastropods
* Atrium of the ventricular system of the brain
* Pulmona ...
is tall. The 18 storied atrium is enclosed by 12 individually tensioned two-layer membrane panels form the north facing
façade
A façade () (also written facade) is generally the front part or exterior of a building. It is a loan word from the French (), which means ' frontage' or ' face'.
In architecture, the façade of a building is often the most important aspect ...
.
Given the height of the building, the Burj Al Arab is the world's fifth tallest hotel after
Gevora Hotel
Gevora Hotel (Arabic: فندق جيفورا) is a tall hotel along E 11 road (United Arab Emirates), Sheikh Zayed Road in the city Dubai, UAE. That height has given the skyscraper the title of tallest hotel building according to ''Guinness World ...
,
JW Marriott Marquis Dubai
The JW Marriott Marquis Dubai Hotel is the world's second tallest hotel, a 72-storey, twin-tower skyscraper complex in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The AED1.8 billion complex features a 1,608-room hotel run by Marriott International.
Histo ...
,
Four Seasons Place Kuala Lumpur
Four Seasons Place Kuala Lumpur, also known as Four Seasons KLCC and FSP KLCC Tower, is a 74-story, supertall skyscraper in Kuala Lumpur City Centre, Malaysia. It is Malaysia's fourth tallest building. It features a high crown made out of st ...
and
Rose and Rayhaan by Rotana. But where buildings with mixed use were stripped off
the list, the Burj Al Arab would be the world's third tallest hotel. The structure of the
Rose Rayhaan, also in Dubai, is tall,
taller than the Burj Al Arab, which is tall.
Rooms and suites
The hotel is managed by the
Jumeirah Group
Jumeirah Hotels and Resorts is an Emirati state-owned luxury hotel chain. The Jumeirah Group was created in 1997 and became part of the Dubai Holding in 2004, which is Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum's personal corporate portfolio. Profess ...
. The hotel has 199 exclusive suites each allocated eight dedicated staff members and a 24-hour butler service. The smallest suite occupies an area of , the largest covers .
[Damluji, Salma Samar, ''The Architecture of the U.A.E.''. Reading, UK: 2006.]
Suites feature design details that juxtapose east and west. White columns show great influence. Bathrooms are accented by mosaic tile patterns.
The Royal Suite, billed at per night, is listed at number 12 on ''World's 15 most expensive hotel suites'' compiled by CNN Go in 2012.
The Burj Al Arab is very popular with the
Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...
market, which made up 25 percent of all bookings at the hotel in 2011 and 2012.
Services
The hotel provides many services including shuttle service with a variety of luxury vehicles like Rolls-Royce and Lamborghini. The hotel has golf carts that assists guests to and from the beach. The carts also carry the guests throughout the Jumeirah beach consisting of Jumeirah Beach Hotel, Jumeirah Al Naseem, Jumeirah Al Qasr and Jumeirah Souk Madinat.
The hotel also hosts many events in the ballroom called Al Falak managed by the Burj Al Arab event team. The events are high-end and employees more than 50-70 staff per event according to the size of the event. There is also an open event space called the Marina Garden where the team organises award functions, weddings, cocktail reception and many more.
The hotel has a helicopter service with a helipad on the magnificent structure of the building. Many events like Art Maze are held up on the helipad.
Restaurants
![Al Mahara Burj al Araba Dubai March 2008c](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fc/Al_Mahara_Burj_al_Araba_Dubai_March_2008c.JPG)
There are six restaurants in the hotel, including:
''Al Muntaha'' ("The Ultimate"), is located above the
Persian Gulf
The Persian Gulf ( fa, خلیج فارس, translit=xalij-e fârs, lit=Gulf of Fars, ), sometimes called the ( ar, اَلْخَلِيْجُ ٱلْعَرَبِيُّ, Al-Khalīj al-ˁArabī), is a mediterranean sea in Western Asia. The bod ...
, offering a view of Dubai. It is supported by a full
cantilever
A cantilever is a rigid structural element that extends horizontally and is supported at only one end. Typically it extends from a flat vertical surface such as a wall, to which it must be firmly attached. Like other structural elements, a cant ...
that extends from either side of the mast, and is accessed by a
panoramic elevator.
''Al Mahara'' ("Oyster"), which is accessed via a simulated submarine voyage, features a large seawater
aquarium, holding roughly of water. The wall of the tank, made of
acrylic glass
Poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) belongs to a group of materials called engineering plastics. It is a transparent thermoplastic. PMMA is also known as acrylic, acrylic glass, as well as by the trade names and brands Crylux, Plexiglas, Acrylite ...
in order to withstand the water pressure, is about thick.
Rating
The Burj Al Arab is a five-star hotel, the highest official ranking. While the hotel is sometimes erroneously described as "the world's only 'seven-star' hotel", the hotel management claims never to have done that themselves. The term appeared due to a British journalist who had visited the hotel on a tour before the hotel was officially opened. The journalist described Burj al Arab as "more than anything she has ever seen" and therefore referred to it as a seven-star hotel. In the words of a Jumeirah Group spokesperson: "There's not a lot we can do to stop it. We're not encouraging the use of the term. We've never used it in our advertising."
Reception
Reviews by architecture critics
Burj Al Arab has attracted criticism as well "a contradiction of sorts, considering how well-designed and impressive the construction ultimately proves to be."
The contradiction here seems to be related to the hotel's decor. "This extraordinary investment in state-of-the-art construction technology stretches the limits of the ambitious urban imagination in an exercise that is largely due to the power of excessive wealth." Another critic includes negative critiques for the city of Dubai as well: "both the hotel and the city, after all, are monuments to the triumph of money over practicality. Both elevate style over substance."
Yet another: "Emulating the quality of palatial interiors, in an expression of wealth for the mainstream, a theater of opulence is created in Burj Al Arab … The result is a baroque effect".
Notable events
Several events have taken place on the
helipad above ground to attract media attention. These include:
*2004:
Tiger Woods
Eldrick Tont "Tiger" Woods (born December 30, 1975) is an American professional golfer. He is tied for first in PGA Tour wins, ranks second in men's major championships, and holds numerous golf records.
*
*
* Woods is widely regarded as ...
teeing off.
*2005:
Andre Agassi
Andre Kirk Agassi ( ; born April 29, 1970) is an American former world No. 1 tennis player. He is an eight-time major champion and an Olympic gold medalist, as well as a runner-up in seven other majors.
Agassi is the second of five men to ac ...
and
Roger Federer
Roger Federer (; born 8 August 1981) is a Swiss former professional tennis player. He was ranked world No. 1 by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) for 310 weeks, including a record 237 consecutive weeks, and finished as the year-e ...
playing
tennis
Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...
.
*2006:
Ronan Keating
Ronan Patrick John Keating (born 3 March 1977) is an Irish singer. He debuted in 1993 alongside Keith Duffy, Michael Graham, Shane Lynch, and Stephen Gately, as the co-lead singer (with Gately) of Irish pop group Boyzone. His solo career start ...
shot the Music Video for his single "
Iris
Iris most often refers to:
*Iris (anatomy), part of the eye
*Iris (mythology), a Greek goddess
* ''Iris'' (plant), a genus of flowering plants
* Iris (color), an ambiguous color term
Iris or IRIS may also refer to:
Arts and media
Fictional ent ...
" at the Helipad of Burj Al Arab.
*2007:
''The Today Show'' broadcast from the Helipad a segment of
Where in the World is Matt Lauer?
''Today'' (also called ''The Today Show'' or informally, ''NBC News Today'') is an American news and talk morning television show that airs weekdays from 7:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. on NBC. The program debuted on January 14, 1952. It wa ...
*2011: Golfer
Rory McIlroy performing a bunker shot.
*2013: Heli-lift of
Aston Martin Vanquish
The Aston Martin Vanquish is a high-performance grand tourer introduced by British luxury automobile manufacturer Aston Martin in 2001 as a successor to the Aston Martin Vantage (1993).
The Aston Martin "V12 Vanquish," designed by Ian Callum ...
.
*2013:
David Coulthard
David Marshall Coulthard (; born 27 March 1971) is a British former racing driver from Scotland, later turned presenter, commentator and journalist. Nicknamed 'DC', he competed in 15 seasons of Formula One between and , taking 13 Grand Prix vi ...
performing
donuts
A doughnut or donut () is a type of food made from leavened fried dough. It is popular in many countries and is prepared in various forms as a sweet snack that can be homemade or purchased in bakeries, supermarkets, food stalls, and fra ...
in a
Formula 1 racecar.
*2017: Nick Jacobsen
kiteboards down to the sea.
*2021:
David Guetta
Pierre David Guetta ( , ; born 7 November 1967) is a French DJ and music producer. He has over 10 million album and 65 million single sales globally, with more than 10 billion streams. In 2011, 2020 and 2021, Guetta was voted the number one D ...
playing a DJ set on livestream.
In popular culture
The last chapter of the espionage novel ''Performance Anomalies'' takes place at the top of the Burj Al Arab, where the spy protagonist Cono 7Q discovers that through deadly betrayal his spy nemesis Katerina has maneuvered herself into the top echelon of the government of
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbeki ...
. The hotel can also be seen in ''
Syriana
''Syriana'' is a 2005 American political thriller film written and directed by Stephen Gaghan, loosely based on Robert Baer's 2003 memoir '' See No Evil''. The film stars an ensemble cast consisting of George Clooney, Matt Damon, Jeffrey Wrig ...
'' and also some
Bollywood
Hindi cinema, popularly known as Bollywood and formerly as Bombay cinema, refers to the film industry based in Mumbai, engaged in production of motion pictures in Hindi language. The popular term Bollywood, is a portmanteau of "Bombay" (fo ...
movies.
Richard Hammond included the building in his television series, ''
Richard Hammond's Engineering Connections''.
The Burj Al Arab serves as the cover image for the 2009 album ''
Ocean Eyes'' by
Owl City
Owl City is an American electronic music project created in 2007 in Owatonna, Minnesota. It is one of several projects by singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Adam Young, who created the project while experimenting with music in his pa ...
.
The Burj Al Arab was the site of the last task of the fifth episode of the
first season of the
Chinese edition of ''The Amazing Race'', where teams had to clean up a room to the hotel's standards.
The building is featured in
Matthew Reilly's novel ''
The Six Sacred Stones'', where a kamikaze pilot crashes a plane into the hotel, destroying it in an attempt to kill the protagonist, Jack West Jr.
The building was the location of the main challenge of the ninth episode of the Canadian-American animated television series ''
Total Drama Presents: The Ridonculous Race'',
where contestants were tasked to either return a serve from a tennis robot on the hotel's helipad, or squeegee an entire column of the hotel's windows.
See also
*
W Barcelona
The W Barcelona Hotel, popularly known as the ''Hotel Vela'' (''Sail Hotel'') due to its shape, is a building designed by Ricardo Bofill located in the Barceloneta district of Barcelona, in the expansion of the Port of Barcelona. The hotel is man ...
(''Hotel Vela'') – skyscraper of similar appearance in Barcelona, Spain (sail)
*
Oman TiT – residential skyscraper of similar appearance in
Taipei
Taipei (), officially Taipei City, is the capital and a special municipality of the Republic of China (Taiwan). Located in Northern Taiwan, Taipei City is an enclave of the municipality of New Taipei City that sits about southwest of the ...
,
Taiwan
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...
(sail)
*
Elite Plaza – a similar-shaped skyscraper in Yerevan, Armenia
*
JW Marriott Panama
__NOTOC__
The JW Marriott Panama (formerly The Bahia Grand Panama, before that Trump International Hotel & Tower Panama, and before that Trump Ocean Club) is a 70 floor, , mixed-use waterfront hotel and condominium tower development in Panama Ci ...
(Panama City) – similar structure
*
Spinnaker Tower
The Spinnaker Tower is a landmark observation tower in Portsmouth, England. It is the centrepiece of the redevelopment of Portsmouth Harbour, which was supported by a National Lottery grant. The tower's design was chosen by Portsmouth reside ...
, Portsmouth – similar structure in Portsmouth, UK
*
Vasco da Gama Tower
The Vasco da Gama Tower ( pt, Torre Vasco da Gama, ) is a lattice tower with skyscraper in the civil parish of Parque das Nações, the municipality of Lisbon, in Portugal. Built on the north bank of the Tagus river, it is named after the Portugu ...
– a skyscraper of similar appearance in Lisbon, Portugal (sail)
*
Sail Tower
The Sail Tower ( he, בית המפרש, ''Beit HaMifras''), officially District Government Center - Building B ( he, קרית הממשלה המחוזית חיפה - בניין ב) is a skyscraper and government building in Haifa, Israel. It is par ...
– a skyscraper of similar appearance in Haifa, Israel (sail)
*
List of tallest buildings in the United Arab Emirates
This list of tallest buildings in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) ranks skyscrapers based on official height. The tallest building in the UAE is Burj Khalifa in Dubai, which rises and contains 163 floors. The tower has stood as both the tallest bu ...
*
List of buildings in Dubai
Below is a list of buildings in Dubai. Dubai has a varied set of buildings and structures in different architectural styles. Many modern interpretations of Islamic architecture can be found here due to a boom in construction and architectural in ...
*
List of tallest buildings in Dubai
Dubai, the largest city in the United Arab Emirates, is home to many extremely tall modern high-rises, 108 of which stand taller than . The tallest building in Dubai is the Burj Khalifa, which rises and contains 163 floors. The tower has ...
References
Further reading
*
External links
*
{{Authority control
1999 establishments in the United Arab Emirates
Artificial islands of Dubai
Futurist architecture
High-tech architecture
Hotel buildings completed in 1999
Postmodern architecture in Dubai
Skyscraper hotels in Dubai