They’re simply among the buildings that outline the UAE. However what’s the story behind them? Within the third a part of our summer season sequence celebrating the nation’s structure, we take a look at the historical past behind Abu Dhabi’s Essential Bus Terminal.
4 years earlier than Abu Dhabi’s Essential Bus Terminal opened, expectations have been very excessive.
Officers mentioned the constructing deliberate for town centre was partly impressed by the well-known “shell roofs” of Australia’s Sydney Opera Home.
It was to be a chic and easy construction to make journey a cushty expertise.
“The shell-type design is featured within the central station by the sloping roof over the principle departure space and its wings which cowl the arrival and departure areas,” the Gulf Information report from December 26, 1985 mentioned.
Protection of the deliberate terminal appeared incessantly within the UAE press all through the Eighties, and for good cause. The inhabitants was surging, and from 14 buses serving Abu Dhabi in 1979, greater than 230 plied routes within the emirate by 1988, native studies mentioned, placing large stress on the station on Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Avenue (Airport Street).
This was a pivotal second in Abu Dhabi’s city enlargement and a number of other key official buildings have been going up amid a constructing growth within the emirate. The brand new terminal was a kind of.
A public transport transformation
When it opened on March 13, 1989, the station heralded a brand new period for public transport. Archive pictures present the placing modernist constructing in all its glory of white concrete and sweeping curves that got here collectively underneath that sloping roof.
A sq. construction evoking an airport sits on one aspect, whereas a round area age disc housed the bus inspectors. 4 concrete prongs stretch out from the principle space to function shaded bus bays.
However the story behind the creation of some of the placing stations within the Center East has been misplaced to time. It’s certainly one of Japanese European design, forgotten Bulgarian architects and a circulation of concepts, architectural exchanges and other people set towards the backdrop of the Chilly Battle.
Technoexportstroy, a Bulgarian state-owned firm, designed the terminal. It was certainly one of many firms from socialist Japanese Europe that had operated throughout the Center East and North Africa because the Nineteen Fifties.
They have been extra inexpensive than western friends, appreciated the native sensitivities and stayed to supervise the initiatives in a time of acute labour shortages within the increasing Gulf.
“A few of the [Technoexportstroy] individuals have been distinguished in Bulgaria, and to draw individuals of comparable standing from the West could be way more tough,” mentioned Prof Lukasz Stanek, creator of Structure in World Socialism: Japanese Europe, West Africa, and the Center East within the Chilly Battle.
The Bulgarian couple driving progress in Abu Dhabi
Nowhere was this degree of experience extra evident than the bus station, which was the work of Technoexportstroy’s distinguished Bulgarian architects Kuno and Stanka Dundakov.
Individually and as a pair, the husband-and-wife crew have been additionally chargeable for the revamped Vasil Levski Nationwide Stadium in Sofia and El Menzah Sports activities Palace in Tunisia.
“[Stanka] confirmed nice satisfaction within the station,” mentioned Elena Balabanska, a Bulgarian architect who runs a Fb group referred to as Bulgarian Structure Overseas. “She regarded again fondly on it years after it was accomplished.”
The terminal is constructed within the modernist type, and whereas some have ascribed the label “brutalist” — a time period coined within the West to explain post-Second World Battle concrete constructions — it goes past these definitions to attempt to work with town in a technologically competent and civic means.
Building was accomplished by the Zakum firm, whereas two smaller stations, in Vacationer Membership and Al Bateen, constructed to enhance the terminal additionally had curved roofs with concrete canopies to offer shade for passengers.
Technoexportstroy designed a lot of different vital constructions in Abu Dhabi, reminiscent of a municipality constructing within the capital and Al Ain, however these have been the work of different architects.
What stays placing, nevertheless, is how all these official buildings are horizontal in an try to have interaction with town amid many extra taller, vertical ones.
“After I visited Abu Dhabi, I assumed that horizontal buildings have a prominence as carriers of status: state, spiritual, civic, cultural,” mentioned Prof Stanek. “The remainder of metropolis is vertical — even the buildings bordering the streets, so horizontal buildings stand out.”
Making a worldwide connection
However one other legacy of Technoexportstroy in Abu Dhabi was the alternate of concepts, applied sciences and methods of working within the UAE between individuals from Japanese Europe and the world over through the Chilly Battle. Technoexportstroy had an workplace within the capital and the Dundakovs visited to supervise the work.
“Keep in mind that they have been travelling from Japanese Europe, with energy cuts in Romania and hardly something within the retailers in Poland, so the Gulf was very engaging additionally on this respect,” Prof Stanek mentioned.
“However it additionally supplied them with an important skilled alternative of studying. The Gulf was a spot of experimenting with new concepts and applied sciences coming from everywhere in the world. It was not an expertise of exoticism however an expertise of modernity,” he mentioned.
“They have been there to study and that’s a extremely totally different method to many western designers. It was not a 3rd selection for them however a primary selection.”
Traces of Technoexportstroy’s work reside on not simply within the buildings in Abu Dhabi that individuals nonetheless use right now, but in addition of their collaboration with its native accomplice on the station. Tayeb Engineering used the data gleaned to push on to bigger, extra difficult initiatives within the years after.
“If there’s a legacy, maybe it lies in these cases of collaboration and alternate between the native companions reminiscent of Tayeb and these Japanese European companies,” Prof Stanek mentioned.
“These exchanges are remembered and the individuals who got here are remembered.”
The station, which was painted a vibrant inexperienced in later years, nonetheless serves as Abu Dhabi’s fundamental terminal. A taxi stand constructed later was a part of the Technoexportstroy grasp plan however not regarded as its structure.
The 2 substations in Vacationer Membership and Al Bateen, in the meantime, have closed. Al Bateen reopened as a mall for a time, whereas the Vacationer Membership station was rebranded as check-in terminal for Abu Dhabi airport. However each now stand empty and their destiny is unclear.
Many residents identify the principle terminal as certainly one of their favorite buildings. However the work of the Dundakovs and Technoexportstroy has been largely forgotten and, within the West, typically ignored.
“This period has not been talked about a lot,” mentioned Ms Balabanska, who helped to stage a number of exhibitions lately in Bulgaria devoted to this structure.
“[But the] station is certainly one of my favorite buildings,” she mentioned. “It’s one which made me begin trying into this discipline.
“The constructing is timeless with clear strains and introduced a really trendy look to the capital presently.”
Up to date: August 03, 2022, 6:23 PM