Architect Antonio Citterio on designing the Bulgari Dubai

With a project such as this, the goal is not merely architectural: it is to create life. We are starting from scratch. The Bulgari Resort and Residences is a big, expensive, time-consuming project that will, once completed in 2017, occupy 158,000 square metres of an island that is made entirely of reclaimed land off the coast of Dubai.

In certain respects, it is easy to work in the centre of a city – although doing so presents its difficulties. The Bulgari hotel in Knightsbridge was a nightmare. A new building in central London? You can’t imagine the complexities. The property in Milan, which was originally a church and a convent, was another interesting story. In Bali, we built in a tropical forest. In Dubai, the project raised the question of how we could go about creating a living space from the void. The very island on which we will be building has only just come into being.

In Europe, we have cities thousands of years old. Bulgari is a Roman company and it speaks proudly of being inspired by the city’s 2,700-year history. Although I’m not from Rome, I understand this pride in a rich, ancient heritage. Dubai, by contrast, is a city with a history of barely half a century. When it was laid out, one of the key considerations was how people would get around, which is why the city centre is divided by a freeway. Personally, I am not convinced that this was the best way to create a city.

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With the Bulgari Dubai, we want to create a village. I would go so far as to say that we are trying to create, on one level, a European experience – one that has to do with a sense of community, of scale, of human relationships. I think of myself sitting in the shade outside a café in a comfortable chair with a cup of coffee and a newspaper, surrounded by other people, feeling a part of the place where I am.

We knew we wanted lots of pedestrian space; this is crucial. You’ll be able to arrive in a car, but it will immediately disappear [into a car park] and you will not have to see any vehicles at all. You will walk everywhere – around a piazza, a marina, public spaces and restaurants. I hope that we can later add a kindergarten, a pharmacy and so on. We want to create a certain kind of ambience. I call this ‘naturality’. I know that is not quite proper English, but I like it: it sounds right.

I believe that one of the most important aspects of my job is to imagine a place coming to life. For me, it is not just about making rooms – it is about making room for this transformation to occur. And the role of the architect is to create that environment.

Another side of ‘naturality’ concerns materials. I have some experience of working in the Gulf region and I know that when you build with high-tech materials, you can make mistakes. Because of the sand in the air and the lack of rain, metal and glass quickly lose their shine, and their appeal – they just look dirty. This can be avoided by using natural materials. They look and age better, which is why you will see a lot of limestone, lava and basalt at the Bulgari Dubai.

Buildings are machines and machines need energy. This has become more and more important in our dense high-rise cities. These complicated machines are sophisticated, but they are also vulnerable. One of the reasons I admire I M Pei’s Museum of Islamic Art in Doha is because it is not only elegant, but functions like an old building – there is fresh air, for instance. It sounds simple, yet it is fundamental. Similarly, in Dubai, there will be a lot of windows, a lot of shade, balconies. We are trying to show you can live comfortably without the machine, so to speak.

I don’t think it would have been possible to do a project of this kind, on this scale, 10 years ago. Back then it would have been a high-rise building – less attention would have been paid to pedestrian space and the idea of community. Things have moved on, in a good way.

As an architect, you can never be sure of getting it absolutely right. I hope that in 10, 20, 30 years’ time, people will look at the Bulgari Dubai and recognise that we brought life and a degree of ‘naturality’ to this amazing city.

bulgarihotels.com