DUBAI boasts some of the world’s most spectacular shopping malls, including the Mall of the Emirates with its indoor ski slope and the Dubai Mall with its 33,000-creature aquarium. But for anyone with an eye to the future the most interesting mall is one that few tourists visit: 20 minutes’ drive from downtown, through scrubland and past abandoned building projects.
The embellishments on the Dragon Mart are feeble by Dubai standards. The architects did try to make the building look like a dragon; at least, they gave it some curves and stuck scalelike spikes into the roof. There is also a dragon coiled around a giant golden globe near the main entrance. Yet the mart is resolutely utilitarian. The most colourful decorations are giant Chinese flags. The first thing the visitor encounters upon entering the dragon’s mouth is the Zhong Dong Sanitary Ware Centre, “the largest sanitary ware centre in the Middle East”.
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