Aesthetic blend of unoccupied retail units and busy shopping mall corridors

The gold souq in the Dubai Mall is closed for over a year now, but shoppers and visitors hardly ever notice. Souq-like painted artificial walls cover the unoccupied retail spaces, making them invisible for the unprofessional eye of the ordinary visitor. If you never knew there was a gold souq in that part of the Dubai Mall, it won’t even cross your mind. The aesthetic drawings on the most probably plywood walls, suggest that there is a work in progress going on, but the aesthetic blend with the rest of the shopping mall’s decoration makes it almost invisible.

At its launch, the gold souq was highlighted as one of the key retail attractions of Dubai Mall. The area was designed by Northpoint architects and aimed to recreate the traditional structure of an Arabian souk with its meandering corridors and themed courtyards.