Fifty restored courtyard houses with wind towers, in the only part of Dubai where the streets are too narrow for a car.
Also called Al Bastakiya, after the Iranian town of Bastak that many of its original residents came from — Persian merchants who settled here in the late nineteenth century after Dubai abolished trade tariffs in 1901, a decision that made the city.
Around fifty coral-and-gypsum courtyard houses survive, in lanes too narrow for vehicles. It is the only surviving piece of pre-oil urban Dubai.
It nearly went
By the 1980s the quarter was derelict and a demolition plan was approved. The campaign to save it was led in part by the British architect Rayner Otter, who was restoring a house here and wrote to Prince Charles about it; Charles raised it on a visit in 1989, and the demolition was halted. Restoration began properly in the 1990s.
About half the original quarter had already gone.
The wind towers
The barjeel is the reason to look up. A square tower open on four sides, with internal diagonal partitions, catching whatever breeze exists at height and funnelling it down into the room below, while warm air rises and escapes. Combined with thick coral walls, small windows and a shaded courtyard, it produced a temperature difference of several degrees without any power at all.
They are a genuinely sophisticated piece of climate engineering, and they were abandoned within a decade of air conditioning arriving.
What is inside
The houses hold small galleries, craft shops, cafés and museums, most of them free or nearly so:
The Coffee Museum. The Sheikh Mohammed Centre for Cultural Understanding, which runs cultural meals and heritage walks. XVA Gallery, a contemporary art space with a courtyard café and a small hotel. The Coin Museum, the Philately House, and a scattering of artists’ studios.
Arabian Tea House, in a courtyard under a tree, is the standard lunch stop and is pleasant despite being obvious.
Practicalities
The quarter is free and open at all hours; individual attractions have their own times and most close on Sundays or Fridays.
The lanes are unpaved in places, uneven and unshaded. Bring water.
The abra from Deira lands at Bur Dubai station, five minutes’ walk away, and arriving that way — across the Creek on a wooden boat for one dirham — is much the best approach.
Immediately beside it are the Textile Souk, Al Fahidi Fort and the Hindu temple and Grand Mosque, all within a few minutes.
