Lecture location: 19 Washington Square North, Events Space
To attend, please RVSP to 19wsn.rsvp@nyu.edu
Up until the mid-20th century, mud-brick houses, palm-frond barasti, and Bedouin tents dotted the landscape of Abu Dhabi. Fast-forward to the 21st-century, the city has become an ordered grid of soaring glass towers interspersed with high-rises and mosques. Some landmark buildings, both completed and in the planning stages, stand out for their integration of distinct visual forms of Arabian heritage into sleek, modern designs. This series considers the heroic monuments that have and will become iconic symbols for Abu Dhabi and the city's ambition to marry its cultural past with achievements of the present.
Spring 2012 Events
Abu Dhabi's Urban Planning Vision 2030
February 27, 2012 | 6:30-8:00 PM
Jody Andrews Director, Capital District Development, Abu Dhabi Urban Planning Council
The Abu Dhabi Urban Planning Council (UPC) is responsible for the future of Abu Dhabi's urban environments and the expert authority behind the visionary Plan Abu Dhabi 2030. The Council's quarter century plan is already transforming Abu Dhabi City and the entire Emirate using sound guiding principles to drive sustainable urban development and renewal. By drawing on urban planning expertise locally, throughout the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and around the world, the UPC strives to become a global authority on the future of urban planning and design. Its ground-breaking Capital District Master Plan is now in the construction design phase to become the new Capital City of the United Arab Emirates, and its internationally recognized Estidama sustainability program is being successfully implemented across the Emirate along with a series of comprehensive area Master Plans that are already revitalizing Abu Dhabi's existing urban environments.
The Parliament of Abu Dhabi
March 29, 2012 | 6:30-8:00 PM
Steven Ehrlich Design Principal, Ehrlich Architects
In 1971, two years after the foundation of the United Arab Emirates, the Federal National Council (FNC) was formed to represent the Emirati people and tasked with mission to examine and, if necessary, amend federal legislation. As part of the urban structure plan to optimize Abu Dhabi's development over the next two decades, a new complex will be built by the California-based firm Ehrlich Architects for the FNC. The building, to be located on the Corniche, a major hub for the city's cultural and civic events, pays tribute to Abu Dhabi's past and future by melding familiar Arabic design language with contemporary form and the latest technological advances in environmental sustainability. This program will consider both the artistic and functional design of the complex and how it will serve the day-to-day activities of the FNC.
Fall 2011 Events
CANCELLED: The Future of Heritage: Creating the Sheikh Zayed National Museum
October 27, 2011 | This event has been cancelled.
Thorsten Opper Lead Curator, Sheikh Zayed National Museum
Toby Blunt Partner, Foster + Partners
Sheikh Zayed, the founding father of the United Arab Emirates, once said, "A nation without a past is a country without a present or a future." This Sheikh Zayed National Museum will take that statement as its mission: to create a museum dedicated to the life and work of Sheikh Zayed and to the unique spirit, history, and culture of UAE. The galleries will document the transformation of the Emirates since its establishment in 1974 and how regional traditions continue to be preserved today. This discussion will consider how the physical shell of the museum, designed by Foster + Partners, will resonate with the story told within, envisioned in part with the British Museum.
The Sheikh Zayed National Museum is one of four museums being built in the cultural district of Saadiyat Island, which also will be the location of NYUAD's permanent campus.
Poised Between the Past and the Future: The Sheikh Zayed Mosque in Abu Dhabi
November 30, 2011 | 6:30-8:00 PM
Robert Hillenbrand Honorary Professorial Fellow, University of Edinburgh
The lecture will explore how this ambitious mosque, at once a memorial of Abu Dhabi's most distinguished son and a symbol of national identity, draws on the many diverse traditions of earlier Islamic architecture and relates to other modern state mosques. Its use of fine materials and its innovations in vegetal and geometrical ornament will be discussed in detail. The lecture will also emphasize the multiple ways in which it meets modern requirements in an era of rapid change, and how it looks to the future.
The Dream for True Urbanism in the Middle East: How Eco-City Themes from Vancouver Shape Recent Planning and Development in Abu Dhabi
December 1, 2011 | 6:30-8:00 PM
Larry Beasley Former Director of Planning for the City of Vancouver; Special Advisor to the Abu Dhabi, Urban Planning Council
The leaders of Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates, have decided to make their cities the most liveable places in the world. Canadian urbanist, Larry Beasley, Special Advisor to the Emirate, will discuss how the "eco-city" themes that have re-shaped his home city of Vancouver were distilled and transformed for the fundamentally different society and environment of Abu Dhabi. He will survey the key new principles and plans as well as the civic initiatives for culture and quality of life by highlighting Abu Dhabi's efforts as a look back into their own rich Muslim urban history and a look forward to best practices throughout the world today. Abu Dhabi and Dubai will be compared as "contrasting metaphors for the modern process of urbanization" and look at the lessons for North America.
