The far pavilions

IT seems everything in Abu Dhabi is the world's longest, highest, fastest, loudest, most technological or most lavish.

The Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi can host more than 40,000 worshippers in its vast prayer halls. Picture: Anthony Geernaert.

HOW things have changed for the United Arab Emirates.

Just 50 years ago, Abu Dhabi’s population was 15,000; now it’s approaching one million. Today, to experience the burgeoning Emirati city of Abu Dhabi is to understand that the great wonders of the world need not be natural.

Manmade is the name of the game here – not just the grand skyscrapers, spires and racing tracks but also the beaches and lakes and parklands. With rivers of oil beneath the populace’s feet, organic growth was never going to be the modus operandi.

Downtown, the pace of growth is rabid. Lining the road on the limo journey from the airport is a montage of scaffolding, concrete shells and hard hats. Construction bosses are licking their lips – particularly those running local behemoth Aldar – while low-skilled workers from Burma, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and The Philippines flood in to help meet the insatiable demand for labour.

And to help the hordes descend, Abu Dhabi launched its own airline, Etihad, just seven years ago. Already it boasts a fleet of 56 new aircraft, flies to 66 destinations and, most remarkably, is now offering the best business class in the world, according to the leading global aviation ratings system Skytrax.

In its orderly, proliferating milieu, Abu Dhabi appears to have some things in common with cities such as Las Vegas and Orlando, Florida. The boulevards are wide and well planned, palm trees are endemic and, perhaps most pertinent, everything is the longest, highest, fastest, loudest, most technologically advanced and most lavish.

Thankfully, though, Abu Dhabi is smashing these records without resorting to an abundance of Disney monstrosities or flashy casinos. In less than three years from now, the city’s Saadiyat Island will be a pulsating, cultural hub of the Middle East. Next year the ribbons will be cut on museum satellites of New York’s Guggenheim, designed by Frank Gehry, and The Louvre, Paris. The nearby Sheikh Zayed National Museum has been designed by Norman Foster and will open its doors in 2012. The city has also attracted new campuses of both the Sorbonne and New York University.

According to Abu Dhabi’s supporters, this emerging cultural identity puts them at stark odds with their more crass and heady neighbour, Dubai.

Read the full story in November Wish, free with The Australian on Friday, November 5.