Culturally Significant Places in Dubai

Al Fahidi Wind Towers

Dubai's oldest neighbourhood, where coral-stone lanes are crowned with barjeel wind towers — air-conditioning from before electricity.

Dubai

Al Jaddaf Dhow Building Yard

Dubai's last working dhow yard on the Creek, where craftsmen still build wooden ships by hand as they have for a century.

Dubai

Al Seef Promenade

Nearly two kilometres of Dubai Creek waterfront split in two — a re-aged heritage village on one side, glass-and-steel pavilions on the other.

Dubai

Al Sheraa Heritage Area

A 200-year-old mosque and one of the UAE's most important archaeological sites, in the heart of old Hatta.

Dubai

Al Wasl Plaza Dome

A 130-metre steel trellis dome at the heart of Expo City — the world's largest 360-degree projection surface, glowing translucent at night.

Dubai

Apple Store Solar Wings

A Foster + Partners kinetic mashrabiya of 340 carbon-fibre rods that open at dusk toward the Burj Khalifa.

Dubai

Arabian Stallion, Gold Souk

A bronze Arabian horse guarding the south entrance of the Gold Souk — heritage counterpart to the camels up north.

Dubai

Bedouin Portrait by Vhils

A portrait of a Bedouin carved into the wall with hammer drills and chisels — not painted on, but cut out of the surface.

Dubai

Burj Khalifa

The world's tallest building and the world's largest LED screen

Dubai

Camel Family

Three life-size bronze camels resting under a starry dome — Donald Greig's welcome to the mall's Gold Souk.

Dubai

Chinatown, The Dubai Mall

The UAE's first Chinatown — a designed immersive district of moon gates, lantern streets and neon, by Kokaistudios.

Dubai

Concrete by OMA

Rem Koolhaas's first building in the UAE — four warehouses fused into a shape-shifting arts space with pivoting walls and a sprayed-concrete skin.

Dubai

Declaration by eL Seed

A 30-metre ribbon of bright pink Arabic calligraffiti outside Dubai Opera — a quote you can walk through and climb on.

Dubai

Deira Gold Souk & Spice Souk

Lattice-covered arcades where hundreds of shopfronts glitter with gold, and narrow lanes nearby spill over with saffron and frankincense.

Dubai

Dubai Metro Station Shells

Golden shell-roofed stations across the city — Aedas's pearl-inspired canopies, a column-free steel form repeated as urban jewellery.

Dubai

Dubai Street Museum

Old Satwa's 2nd of December Street reborn as an open-air gallery — heritage murals by artists from five continents.

Dubai

Dubai Walls

Sixteen global street artists — Blek le Rat, D*Face, ROA, Vhils and more — turned City Walk into an open-air gallery, including a six-storey mural.

Dubai

DubaiDino

A real 155-million-year-old Diplodocus skeleton, 24 metres long, standing in the middle of the mall.

Dubai

Expo City Entry Portals

Asif Khan's 21-metre carbon-fibre gateways — a mashrabiya 'drawn in the sky', with vast doors thin and light enough to be opened by one person.

Dubai

Jaddaf Waterfront Sculpture Park

The UAE's first open-air sculpture park, wrapped around Jameel Arts Centre on the Creek — monumental works by international and Emirati artists.

Dubai

Jameel Arts Centre Desert Gardens

Seven courtyards by Anouk Vogel, each a different desert of the world — sculptural plants on pink terrazzo, some rescued and three centuries old.

Dubai

ME Dubai Lobby

Zaha Hadid's only fully self-designed hotel interior — a fluid white-and-gold lobby set directly beneath the Opus void.

Dubai

Mohammed Bin Rashid Library

A seven-storey building in the shape of a rehal — the wooden book rest for the Quran — opened like a book above Dubai Creek.

Dubai

Shepard Fairey Murals, d3

Two facing walls by the artist behind Obama's 'Hope' poster — his first murals in the Middle East, a peace dove and a fist holding a flower.

Dubai

Terra — The Sustainability Pavilion

Grimshaw's 130-metre solar canopy — a great steel tree that harvests its own energy and water, ringed by rotating 'Energy Trees'.

Dubai

The Waterfall (Human Waterfall)

A four-storey indoor cascade of diving figures — Dubai's pearl-diving past, cast in fibreglass and falling water.

Dubai

Treasury Dome, Gold Souk

A 25-metre projection dome that crowns the world's largest indoor gold souk with ever-changing multimedia.

Dubai