Landscape practice in the Middle East between local and global aspirations

In the Middle East today, there are strong tensions between global and local aspirations in landscape architectural projects. Modernism, introduced to major cities in the Middle East, led to design approaches that are detached from local context, some adopting a tabula rasa attitude to site or inspired by Western models with little adaptation. Ambitious designers who seek to celebrate local values through context-based designs face dilemmas between client-driven global aspirations and local contextual particularities. This perspective essay critically reviews landscape design approaches in the region against discourses of Modernism, regionalism and critical regionalism. Projects in Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Riyadh and Muscat were examined to provide a spectrum of current trends in landscape practices. Insights gained show that valuing intangible cultural meanings attached to landscapes, acknowledging particular ecological processes and working within the profound connections between culture and ecology, are critical to inform future design strategies.