Dubai: Dubai Creek’s bid to become a Unesco World Heritage Site has been deferred, but authorities have to provide them further information when it resubmits its bid next year.
According to the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, there was not enough details available on the creek’s architecture, buildings and markets.
In an evaluation report carried out by ICOMOS for the World Heritage Committee, Khor Dubai’s capacity to symbolise or represent an outstanding example of a 19th and early 20th century trade centre was limited.
The 38th session of the committee is currently being held at Doha, Qatar, until June 25.
Unesco has so far added 13 new sites to the World Heritage List, including Historic Jeddah, the Gate to Makkah in Saudi Arabia, the Erbil Citadel in Iraq, the Carolingian Westwork and Civitas Corvey in Germany, Palestine: Land of Olives and Vines — Cultural Landscape of Southern Jerusalem in Battir and Van Nellefabriek in the Netherlands.
According to the report, the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), Dubai Creek did not meet some of the criteria and its architectural representation was limited, “as a result of its significant reduction of historic architectural substance and urban patterns, as well as the changes of the shape and mouth of the creek.
The neighbourhoods included in the property were partly demolished and reconstructed, and in other cases, extensively restored and now provide an impressive imagination of what the city may have looked like half a century ago.”
ICOMOS however does not consider that reconstructions, even of the highest quality, can represent a unique representation of what they attempt to recreate. The property provides ideas of the historical context but the present condition of its physical attributes and their functional relation does not meet the condition of authenticity.
ICOMOS also considers that the legal protection in place is not yet adequate as the present buffer zone is not protected by municipal bylaws, and that planned and ongoing development projects will further alter the urban characteristic and setting of Dubai Creek.
