Abu Dhabi: The Founder’s Memorial in Abu Dhabi, a permanent national tribute to Shaikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan, will open to the public on April 22, it was announced on Tuesday.
Entry is free and people can visit the monument from 9am to 10pm daily, a senior official told journalists during the first media tour to the Memorial.
Yousuf Al Obaidi, general manager of Founder’s Memorial, said: “Great nations value their leaders and this is what we have done by establishing the Founder’s Memorial.”
The memorial was officially inaugurated on February 26 to coincide with the Year of Zayed initiative.
Located at the intersection of the first and second street along the Abu Dhabi Corniche, the monument offers a dynamic, informative and inspirational visitor experience through art, landscaping, stories and multimedia experiences.
The site will open up 3.3 hectares of pristine public space to the UAE community for walking and quiet reflection, featuring landscaped areas planted with trees and shrubs indigenous to the UAE and the Arabian Peninsula. An elevated walkway in the Memorial will offer captivating views of The Constellation, the Corniche and the Abu Dhabi skyline.
‘The Constellation’, the monumental artwork that forms its centrepiece, coincides with the Year of Zayed initiative that marks Shaikh Zayed’s 100th birth anniversary.
The visitor experience will begin at the welcome centre, offering a multimedia presentation highlighting Shaikh Zayed’s life, legacy and values. The visitor can hear the voice of the leader through a series of audio clips.
Emirati tour guides speaking both Arabic and English will accompany the visitors on a 30- minute tour throughout the monument.
The public plaza that surrounds the art work, known as sanctuary garden, offers a seating areas in serene ambience.
A water channel that symbolises the Falaj- the ancient irrigation system in Arabia, and a heritage garden with native plants are also around.
Installed at the heart of the memorial, The Constellation is one of the largest artworks of its kind.
The work by public artist Ralph Helmick depicts a dynamic three-dimensional portrait of Shaikh Zayed, and can be experienced differently from multiple viewing points around the monument and from other vantage points, offering a series of infinitely evolving personal encounters with the great leader’s image.
Ralph Helmick said he designed the artwork keeping in mind the potential audience , including young Emiratis and foreigners who have not met the great leader.
“Many facets of his dynamic personality were foundational to the artwork – from his ability to transform limited resources into a thriving economy and his role as an incubator, to his stature as the ultimate diplomat, his passion for environmentalism, his deep devotion to his family, and his unmatched popularity as a people’s leader, ” Helmick said.
The Constellation is made up of 1,327 geometric shapes suspended from 1,110 cables. These constitute five different types of regular, convex polyhedrons known as ‘platonic solids’, shapes which are renowned for their mathematical beauty and symmetry. At night, these shapes shine like stars, evoking the timelessness of Shaikh Zayed’s vision as a guiding light for the UAE’s people.
The Constellation weighs 250 tonnes, while the steel structure of the roof supporting it weighs 190 tonnes. More than 5,745 counterweights hold the suspended shapes in place, which form a series of profiles of Shaikh Zayed when viewed from different perspectives both within the memorial’s landscape and from outside along the Corniche.
Illuminated by more than 2,000 lights, the suspended shapes of ‘The Constellation’ shine like stars at night. This celestial display evokes the timelessness of Shaikh Zayed’s vision, which continues to offer the UAE a guiding light along the path of progress and prosperity.
The Ministry of Presidential Affairs is the official authority that owns and supervises the Founder’s Memorial.
