Windtower Houses of the Bastaki

Windtowers have, for many, come to serve as a symbol of the Persian Gulf's cultural heritage. These dramatic architectural features, popular in the courtyard houses of notable trading families up and down the Gulf long before the modern age, were not only strikingly beautiful, but were also highly functional, intuitively capturing scientific techniques that would harness the wind to provide natural air conditioning. This book, however, expands its scope to cover far more than the raw architecture of these windtower dwellings. Building on original research and a detailed architectural survey undertaken by the authors in Dubai between 1969 and 1974, Windtower includes their latest historical, social and technical research to provide a substantial book which offers a unique insight into the way of life the inhabitants, their culture and history.