Qasr al Muwaiji
An Oasis Research Center & Museum
The adaptive reuse and substantial addition to Qasr al Muwaiji (in association with landscape architect, Imad Gemayel Architecture), a historic fort and grounds within the city of Al Ain, is intended to serve as a comprehensive learning, research and exhibition facility that is committed to preserving and providing access to collections relating to Gulf history. The Centre will be dedicated to His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed, President of the United Arab Emirates, who was born within the Fort.
Principal elements of the project include a permanent exhibition located within the refurbished fort that culminates in a tour of the original rooms of the historic Palace. The new structure is clad entirely in glass, offering unobstructed views of the grand Fort, and bearing lightly on its hallowed grounds.
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Client: Abu Dhabi Tourism & Culture Authority
Location: Al Ain, Abu Dhabi, UAE
Year: 2011
Status: Built
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Award for Architectural Design: Heritage Architecture Category | The American Architecture Prize | 2017
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Stoughton, John. "Machado Silvetti's Camouflaged Desert Fort Addition." Architect's Newspaper. February 17, 2017. Archpaper.com.
Context & Landscape
The complex offers uninterrupted access to a vast garden set under the continuous canopy of the trees, and includes a range of amenities such as fountains, pedestrian plazas and shaded parking. The date palm grove itself is preserved as a working plantation, and is fed by an active and decorative falaj system to recall the traditional farming practice.
Program
The second phase of the project includes a research center built immediately outside the Fort, but contiguous to it, carefully integrated within the surrounding date palm grove. An open ground floor offers a seamless extension of the landscape, while an upper story with library, reading rooms, classrooms and offices is hidden within the canopy of the trees. A multi-use auditorium, café, bookstore, temporary exhibit space and archives is concealed underground in a lower story. The center of the complex is dominated by a dramatic three-story atrium that serves as a multi-use assembly space for outdoor activities year-round, and is embellished with vertically planted walls, a shade canopy and a wood deck suspended over a reflecting pool. This space, on axis with the Fort Palace, is anchored at the opposite end by a full-height glass tower that houses research archive materials.
“The architecture’s rhetoric makes a point of saying ‘this is a building that truly floats.’ And it floats because it doesn’t want to touch anything and indeed, it doesn’t touch any of the original structure.”
— Jorge Silvetti, Co-Founding Principal at Machado Silvetti
Related Media
Qasr al Muwaiji Spotlight Concept to Construction
Greening an Oasis Stories
The Ideas and Architecture of Qasr al Muwaiji Interview