Dubai Before Dubai: The Pietiläs and the City Coastline

This paper will attempt to highlight the land reclamation as an instrument of urban planning. To achieve this goal, Dubai will be considered as a case study and, specially, Reima and Raili Pietilä’s proposal for the Deira Sea Corniche Competition as a visionary proposal which anticipated the creation of artificial islands in the city. Describing the history of the Dubai’s coastline and analyzing the Pietiläs’ project for its innovative and -at the same time- contextual ideas, the paper will not only offer a new way to approach urban design in Dubai but also to consider the value of land reclamation as a tool for urban development -with its strengths and weaknesses- in order to avoid land consumption and to allow the preservation of most part of the coastline.