City Beneath the Sea

Jesse Walker | July 16, 2007

Yet another bizarre proprietary community in Dubai: Hydropolis, "the world's first luxury underwater hotel." Here's how the structure is supposed to look when it's completed:

For more on Dubai's wonderfully weird construction projects, go here and here.

[Via Max Raskin.]

Update: In other underwater phallic news, the London Times reports that the "Manufacturers of some of the world's most exclusive underwater conveyances are boasting of the sexual possibilities of submersible cabins equipped with 'large panoramic viewports' that allow exhibitionists to indulge their fantasies in front of an audience of dolphins and lobsters." Naturally, the article cites the founder of "Exomos, a Dubai-based company that builds personal submarines." Is Dubai the hub of every bizarre business in the world?

"There are estimated to be at least 100 mini-submarines in private hands," the Times continues, "ranging from small one-man submersibles to 200ft floating palaces that can dive to 1,000ft." But before you start weaving a sex scene into your favorite Nemo/Celine fantasy of oceanic liberty, here's some cold water:

Bruce Jones, president of US Submarines, a Seattle-based luxury builder, said he had heard of underwater romance being interrupted by curious dolphins.

"Dolphins are easily excited when they sense people making love," Jones said. "They get jealous and bang their noses on the windows."

Comments

db|7.16.07 @ 12:03PM|#

I hope the hotel's radio station will make a place for "Howlin' Mad" Murphy.

Ramsey|7.16.07 @ 12:04PM|#

Looks like the handle of a particularly over-engineered hand plane....

db|7.16.07 @ 12:06PM|#

"Hydropolis reproduces the human organism in an architectural design. There is a direct analogy between the physiology of man and the architecture."

*SNORT*

Ya think so?

Jozef|7.16.07 @ 12:07PM|#

Great. More penis-like structures. I say we need more vagina-like buildings.

|7.16.07 @ 12:16PM|#

Interesting, but I swear that looks like a terrorist attack waiting to happen.

|7.16.07 @ 12:19PM|#

Perhaps re-title "Phallus Beneath the Sea"?

|7.16.07 @ 12:29PM|#

This one's new to me. I'll have to ask about it on my next vist at the end of the month.

I think the world "surreal" can be used as a massively inadequate starting point when describing the Abu Dhabi and especially Dubai.

db|7.16.07 @ 12:40PM|#

While we're on the subject of things under the sea, this just in:

Godzilla to Tour Western Coast of Japan

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/07/16/japan.quake.ap/index.html

|7.16.07 @ 1:03PM|#

Dan T. is right. That would be a heck of a thing to escape from if the wall got breached, which would be ridiculously easy to accomplish.

Plus, all kinds of gross marine life will grow on it, so the views will suck.

|7.16.07 @ 1:16PM|#

Isn't that what got them in trouble in Jaws 3-D?

Ska.one|7.16.07 @ 1:19PM|#

It looks a bit like a ski boot...

|7.16.07 @ 1:38PM|#

Ska.one,
fwiw, I thought the exact same thing.

|7.16.07 @ 2:03PM|#

What's that squirting out the top? Oh, just lights.

|7.16.07 @ 2:13PM|#

I know it's 'an artist's rendition,' but what's with the palm trees around the bottom? Shouldn't they be giant anemones . . ?

Sal Paradise|7.16.07 @ 2:54PM|#

Terrorist attack? Murphy lets it get blown up every week. Next week it's perfectly fine.

BTW, Marco is a mailbox head.

db|7.16.07 @ 3:10PM|#

FIGNUTS!

|7.17.07 @ 12:28AM|#

I understand they have an underwater hotel in the Florida Keys where you scuba-dive to your room...

Movies|7.17.07 @ 8:51AM|#

I smell a screenplay! The world's elite... which has been bombed by fanatical swarthy people from some other nation... in the waters off the near-mythical kingdom of Dubai! We-have-a-hit-on-our-hands!

Seriously, though, what's up with Dubai? Are they suddenly awash in gold and technology all of a sudden? (I'm too lazy to actually read an article on the country.)

|7.17.07 @ 9:30AM|#

Dubai is getting fucking ridiculous. All you rich opulent assholes can go fuck up another planet with your masturbatory construction projects. Leave this one alone.

|7.17.07 @ 1:36PM|#

What's wrong with it?

I love this sort of stuff and wonder why the hell we aren't doing this kind of creative and nutty project in goddamn America!

I want an indoor ski slope in downtown Chicago already!

|7.17.07 @ 6:00PM|#

"I understand they have an underwater hotel in the Florida Keys where you scuba-dive to your room..."

Yep, it's kind of cool. As I understand it, there's only one room though.

|7.17.07 @ 7:05PM|#

Seriously, though, what's up with Dubai? Are they suddenly awash in gold and technology all of a sudden? (I'm too lazy to actually read an article on the country.)

Oil, I believe.

A friend of mine recently went to Dubai. He said they are just building the shit out of everything everywhere they can, as fast as they can think of something to build.

If oil wealth was marijuana, then construction would the munchies.

|7.18.07 @ 5:17AM|#

"Dolphins are easily excited when they sense people making love," Jones said. "They get jealous and bang their noses on the windows."

Dolphins: The intelligent, friendly Glen Quagmires of the sea.