Emirates Towers, Dubai

Dubai’s beautiful and elegant skyscrapers are to be found along Sheik Zayed Road and perhaps the most intriguing of them all are the twin Emirates Towers which opened in 2000.

These towers comprise the Emirates Office Tower, 355 meters high and the Jumeirah Emirates Tower, 309 meters high. What, you might ask, makes them intriguing? First of all, their exterior curtain walls are constructed of aluminum panels, copper and silver reflecting glass, so they reflect back the colours of the sky and the surrounding area, making them seem to change as you walk around them.

The second intriguing point is that although the office tower is the taller, it has 54 storeys, while its smaller twin has 56 storeys. This is easily explained by the difference in the floor-to-ceiling height but is a pleasing paradox nonetheless. The towers are connected by “The Boulevard”, a two storey shopping centre.

The towers are set in 42 acres of lovely gardens with a lake, waterfalls and seating areas in the shade of tall palm-trees. The office tower is not open to the public, but the residential tower has a very good bar on the 51st floor and a restaurant on the 52nd floor, both of which are open to non-residents.