Along with China the contemporary Arabian Gulf is undergoing an urbanization of massive proportions. Like China, architects view the Gulf, whose member states are run by tiny elites disposing of immense wealth and nearly nonexistent labor and environmental regulation, as a liberating place in which to work. No Gulf countries have been as aggressive in advancing top-down, large-scale, institutional urbanism (Lefebvre 2003:79) as the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Qatar. Although because of the economic crisis, many architectural projects are currently on hold, the elite realms of state and technocracy in emirates such as Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Qatar, and Ras al-Khayma continue to formulate an urban vision and prospectus privileging monumantal architecture and commodified, spectacular urban landscapes. Drawing on Henri Lefebvre's oeuvre on "urbanist ideology" (e.g., the Urban Revolution, 1968, The Production of Space, 1971, and the Critique of Everyday Life, 1947--1981), I analyze the elitism, cultural reductiveness, and justification of local power in which the starchitectural turn has collaborated through its alliance with the Gulf state.