December 2023
As I mentioned in my last post, there is some excellent architecture in Abu Dhabi, and this post is going to concentrate on that.
Al Bahar Towers now called the Pineapple Buildings.
Designed by the firm Aedas, one tower is the headquarters of the Abu Dhabi Investment Council, an investment arm of the Government of Abu Dhabi. The other serves as the head office of Al Hilal Bank.
The eye-catching aspect of the towers is the protective skin of 2,000 umbrella-like glass elements that automatically open and close depending on the intensity of sunlight. Inspired by the ‘mashrabiya’, geometrically-designed wooden lattice screens that have been used to fill windows of traditional Arabic architecture that allow women to see out and yet remain unseen.
Sheikh Zayed Bridge (I had to take this off of the internet as it is impossible to take a picture of this bridge except from the water)
Designed by the late Israeli -British architect Zaha Hadid, the one-half-mile-long bridge is said to be the most complex bridge ever built.
The Louvre Museum
The Louvre Museum is just one of several spectacularly designed museums headed to the Cultural Island of Abu Dhabi. While the collection is a little underwhelming, the building is stunning.
Series of paintings by Cy Twombly,
Designed by Jean Nouvel, the museum has an interesting flow to it. After walking through a rather non-descript parking lot and entrance, you enter the galleries where the flooring represents the architecture of the gallery, and the displays attempt to focus, as well, on the purpose of the gallery.
Food for Thought – Al Muallaqat (2013).
Diffused light in one of the corridors.
Looking through an interior wall to the courtyard. Jenny Holzer, limestone relief of three pages with Arabic script from a manuscript of the Muqaddimah by Ibn Khaldun, a 14th-century treatise on the writing of history.
After leaving the galleries you step out into this stunning space and you are under the steel dome.
The first pieces you are confronted with are a sculpture by Auguste Rodin juxtaposed with another limestone relief by Jenny Holzer. Holzer’s work (2017) tells a creation myth story written in bilingual Sumerian and Akkadian cuneiform script, taken from a Mesopotamian tablet that was excavated from the ancient city of Assur in present-day Iraq.
Standing next to the cafe looking out onto the sea.
The nearly 200-yard diameter dome comprises eight layers of steel iron and aluminum cladding, separated by a steel frame five meters high. Which Nouvel said was inspired by the fronds of the local date palm tree. It reveals a complex pattern repeated in various scales and angles throughout the layers. When light shines through it, it creates an effect called the “rain of light.”
The exteriors of the pavilions and their enclosing wall are clad in white, precast concrete panels.
As you wander under the dome, you find all types of spaces that are pleasing to the eye.
Another outdoor exhibit titled Ottoman Pavement.
A final encounter with water as you exit the building.
Abrahamic Family House
Abrahamic Family House
Sadly, this complex, designed by British architect David Adjaye was not quite complete upon my visit, so this was as close as I could get.
During Pope Francis’s historic trip to the UAE, he met with Ahmed el-Tayeb, Grand Imam of al-Azhar, to discuss interfaith harmony in the Arab world and across the globe. Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, commemorated the meeting with this interfaith project.
Artists rendering of the Abrahamic Family House with the 5 Wings museum in the back
5 Wings Museum (Zayed National Museum) under construction January 2023
The Zayed National Museum was designed by Atelier Dreiseitl and Foster + Partners. The ‘five wings’ design aims to combine contemporary architecture with the curves of traditional Arabic design. It is also a metaphor for the former leader’s love of falconry, with the towers shaped like wing tips of the falcon.
Other museums I look forward to are by some of my favorite architects, beginning with Tadao Ando’s Maritime Museum and the Performing Arts Center by Zaha Hadid.
Tadao Ando’s Maritime Museum
Rendering of Hadid’s Performing Arts Center
I have so many questions about the viability of a country that sits on the rising seas in a part of the world with rapidly rising temperatures (that eventually will be uninhabitable), but despite that, I can admire the architecture of some of, what I consider, the genii of our era.