24/7 Accessible Places in Abu Dhabi

ADGM Building (Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange)

A glass hall the size of a football pitch, lifted 27 metres into the air on four granite piers above a circular pool.

Abu Dhabi

ADNOC Headquarters

342 metres of granite-framed restraint on the Corniche — a monumental arch standing against the Gulf.

Abu Dhabi

Abu Dhabi Central Bus Station

Mint-green concrete wings folded over a 1989 terminal — Gulf modernism still doing its day job.

Abu Dhabi

Abu Dhabi Corniche Promenade

Eight kilometres of reclaimed waterfront on an undulating line — the city's front room, facing the Gulf.

Abu Dhabi

Al Bahr Towers Responsive Façade

Twin cylinders wrapped in 2,000 folding umbrellas — a mashrabiya that opens and closes with the sun.

Abu Dhabi

Al Fay Park

The Middle East's first urban biodiversity park — 2,000 native trees, textile canopies, and a hundred-per-cent birdsong guarantee.

Abu Dhabi

Al Gurm Corniche & Eastern Mangroves Promenade

3.5 kilometres of continuous shade pushed six metres out over the water, facing the mangrove forest.

Abu Dhabi

Al Maqta Bridge

A pale blue steel truss from 1968 — the first permanent way onto the island, and still carrying traffic.

Abu Dhabi

Al Maqta Watchtower

A coral-stone tower on an islet in the channel — one of Abu Dhabi's oldest buildings, and you cannot reach it.

Abu Dhabi

Al Maryah Island Waterfront Promenade

A financial district with a waterside walk around its edge — planned to ring the whole island at 5.4 kilometres.

Abu Dhabi

Al Qana Waterfront Promenade

2.4 kilometres of canal-side promenade with buildings cantilevered twenty metres into the air above it.

Abu Dhabi

Aldar Headquarters (The Coin Building)

A 121-metre glass disc standing on its edge — the Middle East's first circular skyscraper, and its most-photographed silhouette.

Abu Dhabi

Capital Gate (The Leaning Tower of Abu Dhabi)

An 18-degree lean, four times Pisa's — a skyscraper built deliberately off-balance and held there by steel.

Abu Dhabi

Emirates Palace Domes & Archways

A kilometre of sand-coloured palace under 114 domes — built for a summit, opened as a hotel, lit like a jewel.

Abu Dhabi

Etihad Arena

A woven gold shell on the Yas Bay waterfront — shade by day, lantern by night, 18,000 seats inside.

Abu Dhabi

Flower Parent and Child by Takashi Murakami

Ten metres of gold leaf and grinning flowers on the waterfront — one of Murakami's largest works anywhere.

Abu Dhabi

Hudayriyat Bridge

The UAE's first cable-stayed bridge — 1.3 kilometres out to an island that was closed to the public until it opened.

Abu Dhabi

Mamsha Al Khair

A granite monolith and limestone blocks along the Corniche, carrying a quotation every thirty metres.

Abu Dhabi

Marsa Mina Murals

1,163 metres of painted wall along the old port — the longest continuous mural in the capital.

Abu Dhabi

Masdar City Central Park Camel Sculpture

A camel in twisted metal with an impossibly stretched middle, standing in a solar-powered park.

Abu Dhabi

Sheikh Zayed Bridge

Zaha Hadid's sine wave in steel — 842 metres of dune, lit in colour that flows across the spine.

Abu Dhabi

Sheikha Fatima Park

A ladies' park from another era rebuilt as an urban forest of reclaimed materials, skate ramps and an open-air amphitheatre.

Abu Dhabi

The Emerging Man (The Giant)

An eight-metre head and two vast hands surfacing out of the Gulf, as though something enormous is climbing out.

Abu Dhabi

The Humans by Fatspatrol

A hundred metres of black-and-white figures in profile — dreamers, visionaries and jokers on a nightclub wall.

Abu Dhabi

The Liwa Desert

The northern edge of the Rub' al Khali — the largest continuous sand sea on Earth.

Abu Dhabi

Tolerance by Eduardo Kobra

Two thousand square metres of kaleidoscopic portraiture wrapped around a building — the largest mural in the region.

Abu Dhabi

UAE Pavilion

A gold steel sand dune shipped from Shanghai in 60 containers and rebuilt, panel by numbered panel, on Saadiyat.

Abu Dhabi

Yas Bay Waterfront Art Trail

Twelve works along one promenade — Murakami, KAWS, four astronaut cats and a row of painted electrical substations.

Abu Dhabi