Access to Qatar’s busiest real estate development site is tightly controlled. Trucks, buses, and cars rolling across a dusty dam have to pass checkpoints before they can reach what for a few more months is a feast only for the eyes of engineers and connoisseurs of construction work in progress. Past the security cerberuses, visitors encounter an orderly maze of infrastructure and buildings in every stage of construction, from anchoring of foundations for residential towers to a finished power substation. The Pearl-Qatar, or TPQ in the jargon of people involved, is the domain of the United Development Company (UDC), one of the country’s leading private sector enterprises. The first of The Pearl’s towers — out of 66 being built — will be ready for tenants once Qatar’s oppressive summer heat has passed for this year, according to the UDC engineers working at the site. To be that challenging and thrilling
