Extending our global reach

摘要

Take a dawn flight up the Gulf to Kuwait and, revealed by the low angle sun across the sand, you will see shadows of the enclosures, homes and pathways that belong to an era before the oil fuelled 'Golden Era' that gave us modern day Kuwait City. Now, a new pattern of motorways, oil pipelines and development cuts across the delicate remnants of a once self-sufficient past. Similar explosions of wealth have swept through Singapore and Dubai, earlier stops on my recent tours of RIBA's overseas chapters. Rapid, almost unfettered development that relies on the car has brought unintended consequences.