The Evolution of Abu Dhabi's Urban Design: A Walk with Lukas Sokol

Lukas Sokol, Urban Design Manager at the Abu Dhabi Department of Urban Planning and Municipalities, took some of us on a remarkable walk through central Abu Dhabi as part of Inter-Emirates Weekend 2018 to point out the areas where the city’s historical roots can still be seen. He built on the topic this past May, with his lecture, “The Abu Dhabi Superblock: Adaptation, Evolution, and Livability in the Modernist Grid,” an overarching look at how, and more importantly, why Abu Dhabi developed the way it did.

In a word: Modernism. In a name: Sheikh Zayed.

Photo from https://yallaabudhabi.ae/featured_events/humanity-in-the-poetry-of-the-late-sheikh-zayed/

It cannot be overstated how profoundly Sheikh Zayed influenced the development of Abu Dhabi and the wider UAE. He left no stone unturned in constructing the best future for his people, and in fact his famed attention to detail can be seen in the fabric of the city itself.

  

Pre-oil, Abu Dhabi was largely a community of barasti huts around several mosques and the Qasr al Hosn, the historic fort, which itself was built around a natural spring. Those arriving from the sea would navigate past a coral reef and disembark on a sand spit that was formed by the curving of the waves around the reef. They would walk through the village to the Fort on a well-worn trail.

Image from https://www.itinera-magica.com/abu-dhabi-la-perle-des-sables/

The traces of this path can still be seen on of Airport Road, which widens at the bottom, the point of the old port. Lukas’ planning department envisions developing this route as a ‘Heritage Trail,’ highlighting the old buildings that still line its route, such as the old Juma (Friday) mosque, called the Al Otaiba mosque after one of the Emirate’s oldest families. Today there is a newer, larger mosque on the same site called the Sheikh Khalifa mosque.

Sheikh Khalifa Mosque on the 'Heritage Trail.'

When oil was discovered in the early 1960’s [fun fact: a key player in the discovery of off-shore oil in Abu Dhabi was famed explorer Jacques Costeau!], Sheikh Zayed was one of the few people that grasped how radically an influx of capital and foreign influence would change the country, and started the Herculean task of harnessing this wave of affluence to benefit his people.

One method was urban design. Citizens were given residential, commercial and agricultural lots. With the nascent urban planning council under renowned architect John Eliot, the downtown core was laid out in a grid, and the major intersections marked. Sheikh Zayed himself oversaw this, driving around with a team of soldiers who would stake out each intersection.

Eliot and Sheikh Zayed’s vision was a garden city designed with the principles of accessibility and openness. Thus the modernist idea of the ‘superblock’ was overlaid on top of the sand—quite literally, since Sheikh Zayed would often sketch out his many ideas in the sand, leaving Eliot to commit them to paper. 

The idea was to preserve a neighbourhood feel by pushing commercial outlets and offices to a ring of large towers surrounding an interior ‘village’ of villas and smaller businesses that were interlaced with ‘sikka,’ small footpaths that were a traditional feature of the old barasti villages.

Lukas led us through one of these older city blocks, where the villas and mosques still exist, surrounded by the perimeter of larger commercial buildings. It does have an urban village feel, right down to the resident poultry.

Sheikh Zayed’s influence can also be felt in the design of the buildings themselves. He insisted that they display Middle-Eastern design influences, which is why the older buildings boast features like arched windows and geometric patterns--but no lack of style! 

Sheikh Zayed went on to forge a long-term partnership with Egyptian planner Dr. Abdulrahman Makhlouf, with whom he deepened the use of the grid that still shapes Abu Dhabi today.

  

During our walk, Lukas also discussed how the Corniche was extended in 2002-03, so in the photo below, we would have been standing waist-deep in water.

This photo was taken across from the old Hilton Baynunah building, which itself was previously right on the Corniche. 

Although the city continues to grow and change, and despite the fact that Eliot and Sheikh Zayed had originally planned for 350,000 inhabitants, their imprint has remained, along with it the philosophy that the city is a space to be used effectively by all, and above all, to be enjoyed.

 Detail of pedestrian underpass