More than 25 years after opening its gilded doorways, Dubai’s most iconic resort, Jumeirah Burj Al Arab, is closing for restoration works.
During the deliberate 18-month closure, the resort’s distinctive interiors shall be enhanced, preserved and upgraded by celebrated French inside architect Tristan Auer, who’s reimagined his justifiable share of hotel greats, from the Carlton Cannes to Paris’s Hôtel de Crillon.
But how, precisely, do you reinterpret an icon? “It’s kind of a science,” he tells me on a morning name from his Paris studio. “The Burj Al Arab is without doubt one of the most well-known, vital and recognised lodges on this planet. As a designer, you may have to be respectful – to watch, hear and see how individuals behave on this resort.
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“The vision of His Highness with the original design was just incredible; it’s the taste of Dubai and the vision of a man, and for that, I cannot damage it. So I have to put my feet in his shoes to be able to understand and to enhance.”
Jumeirah Burj Al Arab has many defining options. Designed to resemble the sail of a standard dhow, the resort is among the many metropolis’s most recognisable landmarks, standing as a logo of Dubai’s never-ending ambition. Inside, it’s equally distinctive. Cascading fountains and aquariums crammed with 400 species of fish, sharks and rays sit on the foot of its towering 180-metre atrium. Some 1,790 sq. metres of 24-carat gold leaf run all through, alongside 86,500 hand-fixed Swarovski crystals. More than 30 sorts of Statuario marble – the identical stone utilized by Michelangelo – cloak almost 24,000 sq. metres of partitions and flooring. Tourists with no reservation right here pay to tour its halls, simply to peek backstage of its duplex suites, with their mirrored ceilings, mosaiced washrooms and Jacuzzi bathtubs. Its design has all the time been loudly, unapologetically opulent, and that, Auer says, won’t change.