Extract 1 (Plot No: C144, Sector: E18_03, Zone: Al Danah, Abu Dhabi, UAE)

ABSTRACT
A wall has been extracted from a now demolished building in Abu Dhabi. This extract is from a nondescript address that will most likely be forgotten over time. The current goal is to engage researchers from across disciplines to engage with this wall and the community surrounding it to produce and collect research material. For this cycle the research material will be collated on a website. In the future, artists and creative practitioners will be invited to transform the research material into creative forms.

WALL AS SOCIAL OBJECT
How do we reframe a wall as a social object? As a witness to tangible and intangible histories a wall holds myriad relationships with time, people and culture. Transplanted from its original address a wall gets exposed in a manner never intended by the architect. The extracted wall is not a reduction of a building. Rather, by salvaging a wall we prevent the entire building from collapsing. Through its wealth of links this wall now invites a philosophical, social and scientific investigation to creatively reconstruct the totality to which it belonged, and arguably a lot more. This wall can become an address in itself – a site of inquiry that brings together a new community of researchers, story tellers and artists, reframing the wall as a social object.

Extract 1 (Plot No: C144, Sector: E18_03, Zone: Al Danah, Abu Dhabi, UAE)
In October 2022 the demolition underway of a two-story building in Abu Dhabi was halted to allow for the extraction of a single wall. Now completely demolished, Bin Musalim Almansooris building (located along Hazza Bin Zayed The First Street, near Burjeel Hospital) was over 4 decades old, which made it a familiar structure in a city that has witnessed a lot of change. The buildings pronounced arched facade is well remembered amongst Abu Dhabi’s residents. Shops lined the ground floor, while the premises upstairs provided living spaces where this wall was extracted from. What struck me about the wall I selected for extraction were the row of landscape posters left behind by the inhabitants. Printed in monotone blue these posters depict the lush Swat Valley in Pakistan that is located in the Swat district renowned for its diverse cultural history – from Buddhist to Hindu to Islamic. This region experienced intense flooding in 2022 brought about due to climate change. The extracted wall is close to 7 tons in weight, including the steel frame that holds it. The entire structure is 3.8 meters tall and 3.1 meters wide. The extraction of the wall was designed with structural engineers, metal fabricators and concrete cutters to produce an object that can be easily moved using standard commercially available transportation systems, across road and if needed via shipping. The wall is currently in storage in Mina Zayed, which itself is a great site to visit

Project Researchers