Architecturally Impressive 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

Abrahamic Family House

A mosque, a church and a synagogue as three identical 30-metre cubes — equality argued in Omani limestone.

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

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 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

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

Jubail Mangrove Park Boardwalk

2.6 kilometres of timber walkway threaded through grey mangroves on stilts — with a net you can lie on above the water.

Abu Dhabi

NYU Abu Dhabi Campus

Twenty-nine buildings, one shaded pedestrian street grid — a liberal-arts campus built as a small city on Saadiyat.

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

Souk Qaryat Al Beri Canals

Wooden abras threading man-made canals between an Arabian souk and a Venetian one, with the Grand Mosque across the water.

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 Wisdom Garden, Umm Al Emarat Park

Thirty of Sheikh Zayed's sayings cut into ten marble walls, in a garden of native planting and water.

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

Wahat Al Karama (Oasis of Dignity)

Thirty-one aluminium tablets leaning on one another — the UAE's first war memorial, facing the Grand Mosque.

Abu Dhabi