"Death Star" as interpreted by Rem Koolhaas

On the homepage of the Rotterdam office of Rem Koolhaas, a project for a new conference exhibition center in Ras al Khaimah in the United Arab Emirates has appeared. Nine images of the project strikingly resemble the famous Death Star from Star Wars.
Koolhaas has placed a conference center, hotel rooms, apartments, offices, and shops inside a gigantic hollow sphere. In this wealthy Arab country, there is a desire in construction for originality and leaving the greatest possible impression. Architects invited from the West face demands that they must create an icon. An excessive number of distinctive buildings together paradoxically leads back to monotony. Koolhaas is well aware of this fact and describes it in a text that is far more interesting than all the computer visualizations. Link>