Dubai Expo 2020 is not far off and Dubai is already building its future. It will be the first world exhibition in a Middle Eastern country and full of surprises await you. World Expo 2020 will be held in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, between 20 October 2020 and 10 April 2021. The Expo site, which will cover a total of 438 hectares, is located in the Dubai South district, near the Al Maktoum International Airport.
Preparations are already well advanced as Dubai moves into gear to host Expo 2020, which experts say should boost the city’s economy by injecting an impressive $ 23 billion. The World Expo is a prestigious international event that takes place in a different host city every five years. It acts as an important convening point for new technologies and ideas, as well as a platform for economic, social and sustainable development. Under the theme “Connecting Minds, Building the Future,” Expo 2020 will inspire stakeholders, participants and visitors to consider the future and the ways we all have to make a difference.
The first ever World’s Fair was held in London in 1851. Since then, it has grown in size and importance to become one of the largest international events, attracting millions of visitors every five years from all over the world. to the organizing city. Each edition acts as a major catalyst for economic growth at the chosen site, which is why the World Expo generates such competition for the right to organize this historic event.
The 2020 Master Plan
In 2010, in order to prepare for such growth, the Dubai government set up a committee comprising the Dubai Municipality, the Roads and Transport Agency, the Electricity and Water Agency, Dubai Civil Aviation, the Department of Land Affairs and the Dubai Maritime City, with the goal of developing a master plan for the city in anticipation of 2020.
Three growth scenarios have been developed, but Dubai is on track to follow the “strong growth” scenario rather than those of medium or low growth.
This rapid growth is partly due to the influx of residents following the events of the Arab Spring, but Expo 2020 Dubai is also involved since the event offers the prospect of new jobs.
With such an influx of new residents comes the question of housing, jobs, infrastructure, resources and services needed. In this context, training opportunities and career opportunities abound for architects, construction professionals and, perhaps even more so, urban planners.
Planners planning a career in the United Arab Emirates may need additional training to learn about local laws and regulations. Fortunately, there are world-renowned universities in Dubai, offering masters and degrees in urban planning. Planners can benefit from tax-free salaries in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, and the average monthly salary for an expatriate in the UAE is $ 10,904.
Whether officials want it or not, the UAE will face significant growth over the next five years. But with contingency plans in place and an influx of motivated expatriates seeking to broaden their horizons and work for a better city, it looks like the city is well positioned to make the Dubai 2020 master plan a reality.
Some of the Projects for Expo 2020
Sixth Crossing
Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Crossing, known as “Sixth Crossing” will be the longest arch bridge in the world, with a range of 667 meters long. The bridge will be 1.6 kilometers long, 64 meters wide and 15 meters high above the water. It was designed by FXFOWLE and its construction will cost 2.5 billion UAE dirhams. lt is part of a 3 billion dirhams project to develop new roads near the Lagoons.
Dubai Adventure Studios
IMG World of Adventure is expected to open next year and will be the largest theme park in the world. Dedicated to cartoon characters from the Marvel and Cartoon Network universes, it will be located in Dubailand. Divided into four zones, the park will house a vertiginous roller coaster, offering more turns than Formula Rossa (located at Ferrari World Abu Dhabi). In November of last year, the company Meraas announced a project of 10 billion AED to build four new theme parks. Bluewaters Island Project
Comprising residential areas, recreation a. shopping centers, Jumeirah Beach Residence will appear as the focal point of the complex. The Ferris wheel, 210m high, will be the centerpiece of the project, offering a breathtaking view of the coastline and monuments of Dubai. At the base of the wheel will be a place of entertainment as well as an exclusive place for private events and conferences. An electronic platform with a large screen will allow the diffusion of films, advertisements, and information. This place will also house a souk a promenade a. a 5-star boutique hotel.
Dubai Design District
A landmark in the design industry, the Dubai Design District will feature studios, schools, boutique hotels, luxury apartments, and shopping streets.
Dubai Frame
Called to become an imposing monument attracting two million visitors a year, the Dubai Frame will be 150 meters high and 93 meters wide. It will take the form of a huge frame through which one will be able to see at the same time the constructions of modern Dubai, such as Emirates Towers or Burj Khalifa, as well as older districts of the city like Deira, Umm Harair or Karama. At the base of the frame, a museum telling the story of the development of the city will be built.
District One MBR / Mohammad Bin Rashid City
Currently, under construction; this area is located less than 3 kilometers (4 minutes drive) from the Burj Khalifa near Downtown Dubai, a must see location with large green spaces that will become a new city in the city, with residential areas and commercial. In addition, it will offer a park that can accommodate 35 million visitors a year and the largest pool in the world (40 acres, or 16 hectares).
Alladin City
It is a project inspired by the tales of Alladin and Sinbad: according to the Municipality of Dubai, the project will consist of three key buildings, including commercial offices and hotel rooms, with towers spread over a distance 450 meters- all this is located in Al Rigga, Dubai Creek. This project is under construction and the deadline for the delivery of the buildings is not yet defined.
Dubai Opera House District and Opera House
A modular structure of 2000 seats, designed to compete for tech the famous Sydney Opera House, will be built by Emaar as part of the Opera District project in Downtown Dubai. The venue will host operas, theatrical performances, concerts, art exhibitions, orchestras, films, sporting events, and seasonal programming: it is a centerpiece of the district, inspired by the traditional sailing boats of the area. The Persian Gulf, which promotes the arts, culture, and events on the Dubai stage.
Nakheel Mall
Nakheel Mall will be the focal point of Palm Jumeirah and will be spread over five levels with 100,000 meters of space dedicated to shopping, three underground parking with 4000 spaces, 200 shops, two department stores, nine cinemas, a medical center, and a fitness center. An esplanade will also host many gourmet restaurants as well as shops offering a wide range of food and beverages. All should be completed in 2016.
Museum of the Future
The emirate will be enriched by a spectacular new building, a huge oval ring that will host by 2017 a center focused on technological innovations.
The measure is not valid in Dubai. The largest city-state of the Arab Emirates will be enriched with a huge oval ring which will contain by 2017 a Museum of the future. The book focused on technological innovations will be built at an estimated cost of $ 136 million. On Dubai’s main road, the building will be next to Burj Khalifa, the tallest tower in the world at 828 meters.
Dubai, which is emerging as a major regional business center and tourist destination, also aims to become “a global destination for inventors and entrepreneurs,” said the ruler of the emirate, Sheikh Mohamed Ben Rached Al- Maktoum, by launching the project last Wednesday. The Museum of the Future “will bring together the brightest designers, researchers, financiers and inventors under one roof,” according to its designers.
Its seven floors will house innovation labs concentrated on education, health, smart cities, transportation, and energy. The museum will also be a program for exhibiting and testing the latest innovations of technology giants and will offer opportunities for collaboration with firms and major universities or research centers around the world, say its promoters.
“The Museum of the future will be an incubator of ideas and real ideas, the engine of innovation,” said Sheikh Mohamed Ben Rached, affirming his ambition to “not be left behind” in a world “committed to a new era […] of great technological revolutions “.
The city-state of Dubai, which today has 2.3 million inhabitants, multiplies projects in anticipation of the World Expo it will host in 2020.
- When will the Dubai Expo 2020 take place?
The Expo will take place from 20 October 2020 to 10 April 2021 and will involve more than 180 countries and an estimated 25 million visitors, 70% of which are from foreign countries. The end of the works is planned for the end of 2019, in order to facilitate the tests and controls with a view to the grand opening.
Expo 2020 in Dubai will coincide with the Golden Jubilee celebrations of the United Arab Emirates, the fiftieth “anniversary” of the wealthy Persian state, whose independence from the United Kingdom was ratified on December 2, 1971. The ribbon cutting is so very close.
After the Expo? Difficult to predict the future accurately. Most of the structures will be transformed into state-of-the-art university research centers, with a congress center, museums, exhibition spaces, and many innovative services for students and researchers.
- Dubai Expo 2020 theme
“Connect the spirits, create the future”. Much more than a theme, a true mission with which the World Expo intends to recall the spirit of collaboration in the name of development and innovation.
Under the theme of the catalyst of Dubai Expo 2020, three “sub-themes” are gathered to deepen and motivate the intention to “create the future”:
– sustainability, for progress that does not compromise the life and the needs of the generations future;
– mobility, to create new, more efficient connections (physical or virtual) between people, communities, and countries;
– the opportunities to be unlocked in favor of the future of the peoples.
A few words on the logo, which perfectly embodies the theme of Expo 2020: a ring composed of many small concentric circles that meet to form the central ring. Symbol of the unity of peoples and continuity between the present and the future. But to make the history of the logo even more fascinating is its origin.
The design is in fact inspired by an old gold ring dating back more than 6,000 years, recently discovered during archaeological excavations in the Saruq Al Hadid desert between Abu Dhabi and Dubai.
- Aspiration of Dubai Expo 2020
Continuing with the theme of the event, the goal is to bring together ideas from around the world and to engage participants in addressing common challenges. Ideas will have to simplify life and improve its quality, not to mention what has been done with Expo 2015. Proposals and projects will, therefore, be synthesized in a common vision for our future. And the foundation of this change is the same Expo 2020 site.
Half of the electricity used during the event will be entirely generated by renewable sources, while 90% of the equipment to be used in new buildings will be converted and reused by older buildings and infrastructure. The Dubai Expo is also an opportunity to boost employment and investment: the sustainable development of tourist attractions, commercial and residential spaces will create approximately 277,000 new jobs, 40% of which are in the tourism marketing sector.
- Where will Dubai Expo 2020 location?
The Dubai 2020 exhibition area will be installed in a new exhibition center, covering more than 400 hectares, the Dubai Trade Centre-Jebel Ali, located in the area adjacent to the new Al Maktoum International Airport, the largest world airport. By the number of passengers (160 million per year). The free zone surrounding the exhibition site should be served by the most innovative transportation network on the planet and will be divided into six separate districts (aeronautics, commercial, golf, logistics, exhibition and residential), as well as an airport and a business center. Center for start-up offices and large international companies in the commercial district.
- How to access the exhibition site Expo 2020?
The World Expo site is equidistant from the centers of Dubai and Abu Dhabi, the main cities of the Emirates, so easily accessible from the three airports: (DWC) Dubai World Central, (DXB) Dubai International Airport and (AUH) Abu Dhabi International Airport. The infrastructure connecting the different airports to Dubai and its main attractions is already efficient and reliable. However, in order to facilitate the transportation of Abu Dhabi and Dubai, it is planned to build a train for the least science fiction. This is the Hyperloop, a train-capsules powered by solar panels that connect the two cities (157 kilometers) in just 12 minutes!
- How will the Dubai Expo 2020 exhibition site be organized?
What are the pavilions not to be missed? According to early rumors, the project would draw in part from the logic of the traditional Arab market, the souk, where each type of commodity and food is housed in a different sector. In the center of the site, the central square Al Wasl (former name of Dubai), from where all the exhibition spaces open. In the center of the square are the smaller pavilions along the largest perimeter that extend like large petals.
Three main pavilions, each dedicated to one of the main thematic areas: sustainability, mobility, and opportunities. The sustainability pavilion will consist of a series of flat structures covered with photovoltaic panels. It will host the latest discoveries on renewable energies and energy innovation. The clover will be the symbol of the pavilion of mobility, the latter surrounded by a large square decorated with animations and lights.
Very interesting Pavilion Opportunity project: a kind of inverted pyramid, with openings, passages and even a covered garden that will be the “home” of events and thematic shows. Among the petals will be housing, as well as other important pavilions of Dubai Expo 2020, namely the Welcome Pavilion, the Pavilion of Innovation and the United Arab Emirates Pavilion. The “measure” of the project? About 4 km long and 1.8 amplitude. Despite its size, the exhibition space seems designed to be accessible and fully explored on foot.
- What to visit in Dubai during the Expo 2020?
Expo 2020 there are not only pavilions. Dubai is a metropolis in full evolution and transformation. Many attractions are being developed for the World Expo. Among these stands out (in every sense of the word) the Calatrava tower, designed to redefine the skyline of the city, which will become the tallest skyscraper in the world. Vertiginous is also the project “The Frame”, a building consisting of two towers 150 meters high connected by a bridge of 100 meters.
By 2020, many areas will be redeveloped and, next to the already existing complexes in Dubai, as a huge shopping center that will be built with an amusement park inside, a “citadel “with health clinics and research centers and an ecological harbor in the historic Dubai Creek.
Abu Dhabi is also in full fermentation. The capital of the Emirates will host an island dedicated to culture and especially museums. The works on the site announced the creation of an isolated pole of the Louvre designed by Jean Nouvel, a Guggenheim museum with the amazing architecture in neo-baroque style and the Zayed museum dedicated to the history of the Emirates.
- Tickets for Dubai Expo 2020
For the moment, the tickets are not yet available and it is difficult to give precise indications on this subject. The advice is to check the official website and not to miss to stay on our site. In the dedicated online portal, it is already possible, for example, to view all events, press releases and details of initiatives.
- Where to stay during Expo 2020
The large estimated participation has pushed the construction of new UAE hotels to increase the number of facilities. Forecasts speak of an increase of nearly 40,000 hotel rooms, from 65,000 currently to more than 100,000. In addition to new hotels, the renovation and modernization of existing structures are already in place.
- Other things to do in Dubai aside from the exhibition
With or without the Expo, Dubai is already worth the price of the ticket. The rich metropolis of the Middle East is a mix of architectural magnificence and natural charms. You can visit many attractions, from Deira Dubai to downtown Dubai, through the city of shopping, the marina and the historic Al Bastakiya, the old city completely rebuilt. The most famous buildings are the Burj Khalifa, whose record height will be supplanted by the Calatrava tower, and the Burj al Arab, a luxury hotel with a characteristic sail shape, overlooking the Persian Gulf. No less fascinating are the dancing fountains and the underwater zoo, both located in the Dubai Mall, a futuristic shopping center in the heart of the metropolis. Dubai is also a culture, religion, and nature, including desert safaris, cruises, and beautiful, sunny beaches.