The showy skyscrapers that established Dubai's identity in this hot, humid, desert site on the Persian Gulf have been overshadowed by the towering Burj Khalifa.

The global financial crisis has derailed construction all over the world — even in the oil-rich United Arab Emirates. But certain megaprojects continue to march ahead, though with tighter budgets, more pragmatic goals, and less ambitious schedules. One such project is Masdar City, in Abu Dhabi. In 2007, the government-owned Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company chose a consortium led by London-based Foster + Partners to design the master plan for the 2.3-square-mile development it touted as the world’s first zero-carbon city.

Iconic skyscrapers, especially those that strive for the fleeting title of “world’s tallest building,” are rarely the progeny of cold logic.

As one more sign of the decline of the West and its dominance in things ultra-chic, Milanese fashion designer Giorgio Armani chose the Burj Khalifa tower in Dubai for the setting of his touted debut in the hotel business.

From a distance, the half-mile-high Burj Khalifa in Dubai tapers to a near imperceptible spire like a mirage along the windswept desert coast of the Persian Gulf. 

When Asymptote principals Hani Rashid and Lise Anne Couture won a 2007 competition to design a 500-room luxury hotel and marina on Abu Dhabi’s Yas Island, northeast of the mainland, the directive was firm: to create an iconic complex around a Formula 1 racecourse and complete it in time to host the country’s inaugural Grand Prix on November 1, 2009.