Burj Rashid

Burj Rashid was inaugurated in the year of 1979, and until the beginning of the twenty-first century AD, it was the tallest tower built at the time in the Arabian Gulf. Designed by British architect John Harris and constructed through WSP Middle East, the tower consisted of 39 Floors making it the tallest skyscraper among the gulf countries well into the 21st century. The building was a part of a bigger vision, of the late Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum, as part of the urban, economic, and commercial development of the city of Dubai.
Sheikh Rashid approved the design of the tower which consisted of a hotel and exhibition space in May 1974 and the construction was completed in 1979, three months prior to the completion date, due to the Sheikh’s continuous and daily supervision on the project alongside the project team. Work on the “Sheikh Rashid Tower” project gradually rose from the ground through workshops that operate around the clock, and include about 1,700 workers and 100 engineers working hard to complete the project. The center met all international commercial requirements, as it includes spacious offices, bank branches, a first-class hotel, a restaurant, exhibition spaces for multiple purposes, halls for conferences and exhibitions, a theater for lectures and cinema shows, and parking lots that can accommodate thousands of cars.
The tower was built of reinforced concrete and steel with a square base. It consists of 39 floors, and the last three floors are retracted inwards so that the bases have pyramidal edges. The tower is topped by a cylindrical figure, which reaches more than twenty meters in length. The architect also adopted many different building materials that are compatible with the nature of the place and its determinants, for example, prefabricated concrete units were used as sunlight refractors in the external facades of the tower, and the main columns and vertical panels in the internal spaces of the tower.(1) Since 1979, Sheikh Rashid Tower has become a symbol of trade in the region, and later a symbol of global trade and business enablement with Europe, Middle East and Africa. The tower is still home to regional and international companies, with an area of 1.3 million square feet in Downtown Dubai. (2) Sheikh Rashid Tower has contributed to building the emirate's competitiveness as a destination for business and knowledge and a forum for communication. The tower has contributed over four decades to supporting the development witnessed by the city and consolidating its position as a leading global competitor in the field of business tourism, events and investment.

The Dubai World Trade Center continued to play a key role in strengthening Dubai's position as a global economic destination, adding more than 200 billion dirhams to the emirate's gross domestic product and hosting more than 5,000 diverse business events from 1979 to 2018. In addition, the Dubai Center has attracted The World Trade Center has welcomed more than 30 million business visitors to Dubai since its establishment until 2018, including 12 million visitors from international markets, which facilitated international trade and strengthened Dubai's position as a global business destination. (3).
The journey of “The Center Tower” began from the tallest building in the Arab world and a symbol of business, to become a home for regional and international companies in the “Dubai World Trade Center” complex, which covers an area of 1.3 million square feet in the heart of Dubai, as it occupied the pivotal role of the city’s global leadership in the events sector. . His image appeared on the 100- dirham banknote, for his contribution to building the emirate's competitiveness steadily as a destination for business and knowledge and a forum for communication.

Burj Rashid constitutes a milestone in the commercial and urban history of the city of Dubai, where the exhibition and its urban planning began, as it witnessed the exhibition, trademark, display, local, Emirati and international address sign, and the start of organizing the center on and organizing a number of the largest and most famous international events. Burj Rashid made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of the UAE's development were the tower contributed to the spread of many new commercial and development projects in the urban environment in which the tower is located, which contributed to the transformation of the area into one of the most important areas of the emirate, currently known as the Dubai Financial Center.

Wrapped in concrete, the tower is modernist in style, while the windows are set back to avoid exposure to the harsh sunlight. Some traditional local motifs are incorporated into the design including the use of arches on the building’s exterior. Harris travelled to the US to look at its World Trade Centre project and there are flickers of its look in the Dubai project

The architectural design of the building coincides with the culture of the city, so the building considered part of the cultural and urban landscape of the city. The building was socially associated with the people of the community, as it considered part of the collective memory.

That played a role in protecting the tower from distortion, alteration, or demolition. The building is still characterized by its function despite the modernity of the buildings adjacent to it, but due to the social link and its tourism components, it has maintained its functional sustainability with the possibility of rehabilitating it with a new function that is commensurate with its internal and external spaces.