A STELLAR TRIBUTE TO THE FOUNDING FATHER
Memorial to Sheikh Zayed features a three-dimensional silhouette of his face
The Founder’s Memorial on the Corniche in Abu Dhabi yesterday opened to the public after more than six years in the design and construction process.
As evening fell, tourists walked through the gardens past ghaf, sidr and samr trees and waited for the lights to shine from The Constellation, an installation of 1,327 geometric shapes suspended from a 30-metre cube. They outline a three-dimensional silhouette of the face of Sheikh Zayed, the Founding President of the UAE. Its hanging shapes shine like stars at night, evoking a constellation.
In the manner of the Wahat Al Karama memorial, this monument combines sculpture, architecture and landscape gardening with indigenous plants and water features. “The place is beautiful,” said Noureddine Laaroussi, 50, a Swiss tourist. “Is it a garden or a museum?”
Mr Laaroussi’s friend, Karim Marmet, said even as a tourist, he was familiar with Sheikh Zayed. “The tourist guides on Dubai all talk about him.”
Cherry Regondola, 37, had brought her friend to see the monument on opening day.
“We’re excited to see it after dark,” said Ms Regondola, an Abu Dhabi resident. “We don’t know that much about Sheikh Zayed but we know that he’s the Father of the UAE.”
Emirati guides offer free 30-minute tours that provide an overview of the UAE’s history.
The installation, by American artist Ralph Helmick, weighs 250 tonnes. It is near Emirates Palace on the corner of the Corniche and the breakwater road, which old timers in Abu Dhabi will remember as the site of Liaquat Ali Khan’s 35m portrait of the Founding Father.
When the memorial was first unveiled in February, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President and Ruler of Dubai, called it an “important message that links future generations to the memory of the leader who laid the foundations of the nation”.
“It is a message that the youth must absorb and work to achieve in various sectors to continue the process initiated by Zayed and the UAE’s founders and to build the future of a country that wants its citizens always to excel,” he said.
The attraction includes a visitor’s centre celebrating the life of Sheikh Zayed, which is open to the public from 9am to 10pm daily, and gardens with trees and plants indigenous to the UAE. A walkway offers views of The Constellation as well as the skyline of Abu Dhabi as it would be seen through the eyes of Sheikh Zayed.