UAE Area Guides: Dubai

Al Quoz Industrial Area Area Guide

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HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum

Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE

Al Quoz Industrial Area

Dubai, UAE

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LET'S GO

Dubai, UAE

Not a residential area for middle class expats but home to a large number of factories, warehouses and labourers.

For the labourers that do live in the area, it's a life less of luxury and more of grind. Some 120,000 live and work in the area according to Dubai's latest census, over 99% of whom are male. At the time this represented more than 5% of Dubai's total population of just over 2 million.

For those of us who have the biggest luxury of all, time, there are diamonds to be found in Al Quoz Industrial area. Drawn to its (relatively) low cost space, the area is home to Dubai's artistic quarter.

Lost within the maze of widget warehouses are a hub of art galleries that outdo any other area in the city, even the uber-rich Downtown Dubai. Think Manhattan's Meatpacking District or London's Shoreditch without admittedly the cool or years of gentrification, but double the amount of down and dirty.

The galleries include Art Sawa, Ayyam Gallery, The Shelter, Gallery Isabelle Van Den Eynde, Flying House and The Third Line, most of these clustered around Alserkal Avenue. This small, dusty hub also hosts the UAE's only private museum, the Salsali Private Museum, which devotes itself to contemporary Middle Eastern and international art.

2014 will see a further 3,353 sq.m. added to Alserkal avenue. Currently under construction, the extended area will host an events centre and outdoor courtyard dedicated to "host performances, screenings, panels and talks along with numerous eateries."

Al Quoz Industrial Area 1 is also home to the Antique Museum - which is not full of antiques, and is not a museum. Instead it's a vast area full of stalls selling bric-a-brac and souvenirs from across the region. A place that must be seen at least once.

Al Quoz Industrial Area does not offer any residential accommodation - for families - but Al Quoz on one side, and Al Barsha on the other, do. The Industrial Area is also only 5 minutes from the Mall of the Emirates in one direction, and Downtown Dubai in the other.