Here is a full set of images, plans and diagrams of the giant RAK Convention and Exhibition Centre for the new city at Ras Al Khaimah in the United Arab Emirates.
Designed by Rem Koolhaas and Reinier de Graaf of Office for Metropolitan Architecture and looking like the Death Star, the centre consists of a spherical glass and steel nest and a very long, low building raised off the ground.
>> see more architectural projects in the Gulf on our Google Map of the region
Text from the architects follows:
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RAK CONVENTION AND EXHIBITION CENTRE CREDITS
Project: RAK Convention and Exhibition Centre
Status: Concept
Client: Rakeen Development
Location: Ras Al Khaimah, United Arab Emirates
Budget: N/A
Site: Gateway City, Ras Al Khaimah, UAE
Program: Mixed Use: Convention and Exhibition Centre, Hotels, Offices, Residential, Shopping, Restaurants
Partners in charge:
Rem Koolhaas, Reinier de Graaf
Team:
Samir Bantal, Daniele de Benedictis, Anne-Sophie Bernard, Philippe Braun, Adam Frampton, Martin Galovsky, Beth Hughes, Pieter Janssens, Ravi Kamisetti, Bin Kim, Barend Koolhaas, So Jung Lee, Mirai Morita, Charles-Antoine Perreault, Ian Robertson
RAK Convention and Exhibition Centre Text
Unlike the traditional high-rise building, the design for the Ras al Khaimah Convention and Exhibition Centre accommodates all primary functions, such as the convention centre, hotel rooms, apartments, offices and retail space in a giant sphere.
A low-rise building adjacent to the sphere `hovers` above the ground beside the exhibtion centre, retail and additional hotel rooms.
Access to the new buildings is provided by a new road system linking it to the city creating a direct connection between the new buildings and the exisiting urban structure.
What is left to be invented when it comes to the creation of a landmark?
So far the 21st century – in a desperate effort to differentiate one building from the next – has been characterized by a manic production of extravagant shapes. Paradoxically, the result is a surprisingly monotonous urban substance, where any attempt at ‘difference’ is instantly neutralized in a sea of meaningless architectural gestures.
RAK is confronted with an important choice: Does it join so many others in this mad, futile race or does it become the first to offer a new credibility?
This project represents a final attempt at distinction through architecture:not through the creation of the next bizarre image, but through a return to pure form.
Invented long ago, both the sphere and the bar explicitly abandon claims to formal invention or ‘originality’. (The sphere even existed before man itself…) Yet both geometries still continue to feed the architectural imagination: perfectly autonomous shapes, within their bounds the promise of a perfect world – made possible only by the seamless integration of engineering.
In spite of their apparent simplicity the sphere and the bar could come to represent a milestone in the construction of the new RAK and provide it with a powerful universal symbol: Western and Eastern, futuristic and primordial, contemporary and timeless.
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Posted by Marcus Fairs
May 11th, 2007 at 10:07 pm
Excellent. The Emperor will be most impressed. *breathing noises*
May 11th, 2007 at 11:51 pm
Sorry, still looks like the Death Star.
May 12th, 2007 at 1:14 am
is this the Death Star? I wonder if George Lucas will sue.
May 12th, 2007 at 1:45 am
death star!
May 12th, 2007 at 8:59 am
Is Earth losing it’s humanity? It’s very hard to notice an architect worried about people well-being.
I’m getting pretty tired of poser-architects, instead of REAL architects…
May 12th, 2007 at 12:29 pm
How about Boullée?
May 12th, 2007 at 1:50 pm
so, rem is saying this isn’t the next bizarre image???
after so many years of great work, sounds like somebody is going senile….
May 12th, 2007 at 3:46 pm
it’s the funniest proyect i’ve ever seen…
May 13th, 2007 at 7:23 pm
I think maybe “bowling ball” is more apt, especially when you look at the skyscrapers behind it.
Now, if you could just roll it into the midst of the block behind it, you might have the beginnings of a new urbanism…
May 14th, 2007 at 7:27 am
Better than a blob.
Better than a shard.
Better than another f**king skyscraper.
May 14th, 2007 at 9:28 am
ha! bowling ball. ha.
May 14th, 2007 at 12:01 pm
Rocketship’s commentary is the best piece of architectural criticism i’ve read in a long, long time.
May 14th, 2007 at 4:15 pm
not so cool, haas.
May 14th, 2007 at 4:16 pm
oh yeah, and it needs a landing platform for the millenium falcon!
May 14th, 2007 at 4:44 pm
new manifestos are rising, 1. the money make fantastictecture possible and kill timeless architecture (humanistic and anti-chaos). 2. the 70’s science fiction ideas are the only resourse of the fashion architects today. 3. Any shape can be fill with architecture programs ( finally the form dominates the fuction ) 4. The gone architects will be remembered more a more. 5. People will prefer live in a ‘machine’ like le corbusier ideas more than furniture shade building in huge scale.
i want to complete a famous phrase:
… LESS IS MORE …. PLEASE!!!!
May 15th, 2007 at 2:16 am
Lord Vader sayed: Luke… I´m your father…
Rem Sayes: Who`s your daddy? who`s your daddy????
May 15th, 2007 at 2:56 pm
I knew that Koolhaas was not a Jedi! He’s on the Dark Side!
May 16th, 2007 at 4:16 pm
ugly, the worst project of this decade
Long Life to the Republic……..
May 16th, 2007 at 4:47 pm
it is the evolution !!!!!! open your minds and your heart koolhaas has the guts!!!! ann you???
May 17th, 2007 at 5:55 pm
The Force is strong with this one.
May 18th, 2007 at 12:08 am
Until this battle station is fully operational, we are vulnerable. The Rebel Alliance is too well equipped, they’re more dangerous than you realize.
May 18th, 2007 at 12:09 am
8 ball in the corner pocket….
May 21st, 2007 at 5:57 am
This one is a hark back to the classical Corbusier in a new wrapper wat with the lifted mass et all!!! What I’d like to know is what is the context of the building in this urbane….???……is there any?
May 21st, 2007 at 7:16 pm
I concur it’s a nice concept but the global warming is getting worse. by the time they want to build it, the world is already gonna end…
May 22nd, 2007 at 2:01 am
Yes, but when are they launching it into space?
May 22nd, 2007 at 9:11 am
I wonder where the gun is facing? DC?
May 22nd, 2007 at 2:03 pm
Death Star? … I thought it is a copy of Ben van Berkel’s European Central Bank Frankfurt Competition Entry …. just more “less”
May 22nd, 2007 at 2:30 pm
formal experimentation saturated. to be these days a structural/construction engineer must involve more creativity then architect’s job would require. I’m dropping school.
May 24th, 2007 at 1:34 pm
Starwars 7 – The Return of the Death Star !!!
May 25th, 2007 at 12:54 am
can we invade and tax your new building?
May 25th, 2007 at 6:10 pm
He is laughing so hard at us, Rem is still ‘indigestive’ He says is a radio, yeah right! Everybody knows the truth, is there a copyright mess approaching? More controversy and spectacle coming soon, courtesy of Koolhaas and his machinery and, what about the political issue arising? this would definitely be a US anti-arabic easy target! I’m so looking forward for this building to be built….
July 1st, 2007 at 8:46 pm
I wonder what the comments would be on here if Star Wars had never been made.
July 14th, 2007 at 6:00 am
Eh Mr. Koolhaas,
So you’re tired of the ‘manic production of extravagant shapes’? You want to establish a ‘new credibity’?
I have a suggestion, DON”T BUILD IN DUBAI.
Also, have you ever noticed how buildings ‘hover’ but never hover. That’s because buildings don’t hover. They transfer their mass to the ground via columns or some other structural apparatus.
But I have to hand it to you, you’ve always a sense of humour as well as an overdeveloped sense of drama, and I appreciate that. Especially when you drew that picture of the dudes wearing boxing gloves in the nude while eating oysters, and when you referred to Coney Island as a ‘clitoral appendage’. Genius.
Oh, and I also dig the Seattle Public Library and the Prada Epicentre in LA. I mean, they’re good, but no where near as good as those naked dudes eating oysters.
August 27th, 2007 at 8:30 am
Is there any volunteer who want to destroy this one?
‘The force’ ordered me to explode it last night in my dream.
December 17th, 2007 at 9:57 am
this website is f**ked up and i totally dig the the death star building . from scotland
December 31st, 2007 at 4:13 pm
Compared to CCTV, this sphere is pretty much not doing any design works. It is amazing by it size/program/location. It can be a monumental “building”, but certainly not a piece of great “architecture”.
The world is going to be eviler~ Right~ Death Star..
January 7th, 2008 at 2:56 pm
nice 3d work… the usual form processing illusion.. otherwise sorry to say.. crap!
January 19th, 2008 at 5:48 am
OHH,…..ODD IDEAS,,,, WOA….GREATS…
February 14th, 2008 at 5:14 am
The Death Star is superb… the jounalist who dribbles on about ‘monotonous urban substance’ is a sook.
February 14th, 2008 at 11:53 pm
I wonder when it will be fully operational….
March 10th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
I think someone said this before….DEATH STAR, not sure why it hasn’t been done already?
March 26th, 2008 at 8:18 am
Deathstar indeed.
The last few drawings are quite incredible.
March 26th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
I’m not really sure how I feel about a building that resembles one of the most terrifying concepts in sciencfiction history!
March 30th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
it seems to have only taken 30 years before deliriousness could become reality. pretty amazing that he has, for all of his convoluted theories and contradictory designs, been able to maintain the dream of building the “sphere” since his days at the AA. now if he can only manage to get a communist painter to fresco the foyer…
April 11th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
“This project represents a final attempt at distinction through architecture: not through the creation of the next bizarre image, but through a return to pure form.”
What, the Death Star?
“Final attempt?” How arrogant! You know, get it built without the B.S. and many of us would probably dig it, mybe even laugh WITH you. Put on the pretentious crap act and you deserve what you’re getting here, to be laughed AT.
April 11th, 2008 at 8:31 pm
“..final attempt at distinction through architecture…”
What, the Death Star? How arrogant!
You know, get it built without the posing and many of us would probably dig it, mybe even laugh WITH you. Put on the pretentious act and you deserve what you’re getting here, to be laughed AT.
April 11th, 2008 at 11:10 pm
oops…
I thought you wanted ME to moderate it.
April 12th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
Lord Veider…
Yes Master.
Rise somebody stole our plans.
Do we need skycars to enter the building?? that would be interesting.
At last we reached a point where we can create late 70’s science fiction buildings.
April 12th, 2008 at 8:02 pm
the structure seems incredibly chaotic.
This is cool because it’s not the 60’s anymore, it’s not those pure gigantic clean structure from the modernists…
also i like that it gets into a conflict with this pure form
It’s the science fiction post-post-modernism of Koolhaas
It’s right at the limit to be ridiculous, but still good.
April 14th, 2008 at 5:18 pm
rem, you’re bored of architecture! do something else!
April 14th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
I wonder why every people must critisize the work of famous architects. Seems like everyone thinks he could do it better. Let freedom be and stop giving critics just because not everyone of us has the luck to do what he wants…
August 12th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
david,
read a book.
…preferrably something NOT from the new age self-help section this time.
August 21st, 2008 at 9:21 am
I really think that is a very very strange design and i can feel that it contains a lot of mystery more than entertainment with this bad light and the black ugly color,,
December 4th, 2008 at 6:14 pm
The shape of this building is the right answer to climatic change.
It foresees the possibility of increased wind velocity.
Adds earthquake resistance compared to conventional shapes.
Its self centered configuration makes it thermically self sustainable.
Buckminster Fuller meets corporate needs.
Dubai? Antarctica
August 14th, 2009 at 12:17 am
Gotta love the total absence of connection with public trnasport, but then again its dubai, DOSNT HAVE PT… I wonder if this building will have the ability to fly, not just “hover”… “RAK taking the exhibition to sky”
August 29th, 2009 at 1:15 am
hilarious comments, they skewer this ridiculous building!
not only does it’s form resemble the Death Star, but the overall feeling of mechanical abstraction is similar to the Empire, with it’s faceless Stormtroopers and lack of humanity. it’s an object building, the latest fetishistic building by Koolhaus, alienated from it’s context, as if it just landed for refueling.