Emirati Nasser Akram recounts the history, his experiences while living near the landmark
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00:00In the early 60s, my family lived here in the Port Said area in Dera.
00:27As a little boy, I remember waking up early and looking out of the window to find out
00:33what was the time.
00:34Probably you are wondering why I was looking out of the window to find out what was the
00:39time.
00:40Well, simply I was looking at the biggest clock in Dubai, the Clock Tower.
00:47The Clock Tower is the oldest monument built in 1963 and the key landmark signifying the
00:55first land crossing between Dera and Bar Dubai across Al Maktoum Bridge.
01:02About the background story of Dubai's Clock Tower, Sheikh Ahmed Al Thani, late ruler of
01:07Qatar, was Sheikh Rashid's son-in-law.
01:10In the early 1960s, Sheikh Ahmed gave Sheikh Rashid a very large clock as a gift.
01:17On the instructions of Sheikh Rashid, a concept for a tower to display the magnificent timepiece
01:23was commissioned by Otto Bollard, an Austrian architect who was part of Architecture Design
01:30Construction, ADC.
01:33So he made a sketch of idea for a clock tower.
01:36Mr. Bollard gave the sketch to his engineer, Zaki Homsi, from Syria to produce a design.
01:43This is how the shape of the Clock Tower was developed.
01:47The tower was built in 10 months.
01:51The location of the Clock Tower was once set in the major junction of Dubai, and as
01:58the city expanded, the tower became a permanent structure at the gate of Al Maktoum Bridge.
02:06Despite almost 60 years, the Clock Tower monument remains a much-loved connection between old
02:13and new Dubai, listed by the Emirates Architectural Heritage Department as one of the city's
02:19most significant cultural monuments.
02:22It remains an iconic symbol, signifying access to the bridge, as well as being a distinguishable
02:30clock in the city.
02:32We moved to Port Said in the early 1960s.
02:35At that time, the construction of the tower was going on.
02:38The area was just an open space in general, I mean, there was a clock tower, and there
02:43was some small, like, I recall the very first bakery, Dubai Automatic Bakery, was just close
02:51to Clock Tower, and we as little boys, we used to just rush to bakery and grab some
02:59cakes and bread and stuff like that, almost on a daily basis, so that was our main attraction,
03:06really.
03:07That, you know, to take a, after playing football and just spending the evening, we would go
03:12rush to bakery and grab some sweets and cakes and stuff like that.
03:16They were all open space area, there were no buildings at all, in fact.
03:21Clock Tower was the highest and the most visible monument, you come from, whether you're coming
03:27from airport side, you're coming from their side, or from Al Maktoum Bridge, Clock Tower
03:33is the only monument visible.
03:35So those days, Clock Tower was the monument from which Dubai could be identified.
03:41In this sense, it was the only monument.