Saadiyat Island: Abu Dhabi’s cultural center
Saadiyat Island is a $27 billion project with mixed commercial, residential, and leisure. It is currently under construction and it is expected to be completed in 2018. Saadiyat Island is aimed to be Abu Dhabi’s cultural center, and it has been planned around a “eco-sensitive philosophy with a special low density masterplan”.
Saadiyat Island (translated “Island of Happiness”) which is situated off the north coast of Abu Dhabi occupies an area of 27 square kilometres. There should be place for 150,000 residents with all the amenities that go with them.
A light rail system and a 10 kilometre long highway will link the island to Abu Dhabi city. There will be 7 districts and 29 hotels. Like in Dubai, there will be a seven-star hotel. Three marinas will have enough space for as much as 1′000 yachts. There will also be 2 golf courses, a “culture and arts hub” and 19 kilometres of beach.
There will be five cultural institutions in the cultural distruct: the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, the Louvre Abu Dhabi, the Performing Arts Centre, the Maritime Museum and the Sheikh Zayed National Museum.
Saadiyat Beach will be home to the first of two championship golf courses planned for Saadiyat Island. The championship golf course will be designed by Gary Player and will be the first in the Arabian Gulf with several beach-front holes. It is also the first in the UAE to be designed by the South African who is acknowledged as the most successful international golfer of all time, and whose career includes three Masters wins, three British Open titles, two PGA championships and the US Open title to complete the Grand Slam.
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Saadiyat Island: http://www.saadiyat.ae/
October 25th, 2008 at 5:19 pm
Respected sir,
Am( fazil) an architecture final year student, am doing research on cultural centre as my thesis topic, it will be greatful if you could help me out in understanding what a cultural centre is? and what is it ment for? how we can go about designing a cultural centre.
Thanking you.
October 25th, 2008 at 5:49 pm
Well I’m sorry I cannot be of a lot of help, as I am more into civil engineering. But I guess the principle of a cultural center is to have in one location the most remarkable art creations. Architecture and engineering can be a great part of this art, and thus you might expect in such an area “artistic”, and often complicated buildings.
Of course, normally you don’t “build” a cultural center; it comes slowly at the same time a city develops, and is normally spread around the whole city (i.e. Paris, London, Barcelona, New York…).
If you found your answer, don’t hesitate to post it here