Sowwah & Saadiyat Islands

I had an interesting week this week with trips yesterday and today to Sowwah and Saadiyat Islands respectively. For those in the know, you will understand that this wasn't some kind of idyllic trip to the beach or anything, but it was work visits related to the construction.

Sowwah Island will be the home of the Abu Dhabi Financial Centre and within it the new AD Stock Exchange. It will also house some new 5 star hotels and also the Cleveland Clinic hospital campus. There will be 13 bridges on and off the Island, the first of which you can cross from just before AD Mall.

Saadiyat Island is targetted to be the Cultural Centre, not only of the UAE, but of the Gulf Region as a whole. There will be:

Sheikh Zayed National Museum
Louvre Abu Dhabi
Guggenheim Abu Dhabi Museum
Maritime Museum
Performing Arts Centre

In the slide show below you can see where some of this will take shape. The Zayed Museum is all a bit "hush hush" as far as the design and content is concerned, and at the moment is only marked on the Island by a pole in the desert with a UAE flag on it. About the only thing that is known is that it will be designed by Lord Norman Foster. Here is a press release about it.