The Journal

A house in Dubai, a stake in the family business and a portfolio managed from London may each answer to a different legal system. Within the family, however, the decisions about all three often rest with a single person. As the next generation comes of age, many families look for something more durable than one person’s judgement: a structure that records who may act, on what terms, and for how long.

Jean-Marc Vacheron was 24 when he took on his first apprentice. The contract, drawn up in Geneva on 17 September 1755, is still kept in the maison’s archives, and it is from that modest agreement that Vacheron Constantin dates its foundation. Geneva’s master watchmakers of the period, the cabinotiers, worked in workshops on the upper floors of the city’s houses, where the light was best, and it was in that world that the young Vacheron set up on his own account. The house he founded describes itself as the oldest watch manufacturer in continuous operation since its foundation, a run that reached 270 years in 2025.

Fumel, a town on the River Lot in south-west France, is where Jean Nouvel was born on 12 August 1945. As the son of two teachers, architecture was not an obvious path. He failed his first entrance examination for the École des Beaux-Arts in Bordeaux, then in 1965 won a national competition for a place at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. While still a student he went to work for Claude Parent and Paul Virilio, two of the more radical thinkers in post-war French architecture. By 1970 he had a practice of his own, two years before he formally graduated.

Ten years ago, Sotheby’s opened a gallery in the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) with a clear purpose: to pay tribute to a region whose appetite for international art, culture and luxury is among the most discerning in the world. A decade on, the gallery is reopening, and the moment invites a look at what those ten years have built and where the relationship goes next.

Before an owner flies back to Four Seasons Private Residences DIFC, someone will have stocked the fridge. The same team will have kept an eye on the apartment while it stood empty and, if asked, arranged the private jet or seen to the dog. It is, admittedly, a homely list. Yet it says more about the appeal of branded homes than any marble lobby could, because what many buyers in Dubai are paying for is the knowledge that a home will be properly looked after when they are not in it.

Dubai’s short-term rental market has moved well beyond the early phase of holiday-home investment. What began as an alternative to hotel stays is now a mature part of the city’s residential landscape, shaped by tourism, business travel, relocation demand and a steady appetite for furnished homes.