1 · POSITION
Foster + Partners designed The Lana on the Dubai Water Canal — LHL-H-306 — the Dorchester Collection’s first newly built house and its first in the Middle East, opening a collection assembled from historic buildings into a contemporary one.
2 · WHY HE IS IN THE LIBRARY
The Library records the moment a collection built on inherited houses commissioned one. That is a harder decision than it looks: a group whose value is the Dorchester, the Meurice and the Bel-Air had to argue that a new building could carry the same name. Foster’s practice was the answer, which tells you what kind of answer they wanted.
3 · WHAT THIS MODEL DOES NOT SOLVE
A collection of historic houses that adds a new one has to explain what the name now means, and the explanation is never quite complete. The building cannot borrow the century that gives its neighbours their authority.