Opened in 2007, the Abu Dhabi International Exhibition Centre is considered one of the most modern trade fair centres in the world. The city’s objective is to expand Abu Dhabi’s role as an international trade centre. Eleven ultra-modern exhibition halls combine to form an enormous 55,000 m2 exhibition area. The convention hall alone has room for 5,000 visitors and, at 18,000 m2, the visitors hall is the largest air-conditioned hall in the world. The superlatives of the exhibition centre also include the outward-angled glass façade covering almost the entire external shell - a glass structure of unprecedented dimensions.
The long exhibition halls snake around the fairground in a U-shape, forming interior atria, halls or, when set somewhat further apart, larger open areas for deliveries or parking. Everything is fluid, from the gently rounded building corners, through to the roof structure, which flows gracefully into the surrounding glazed slopes. Individual marble- and plaster-clad steel supports jut up, reflecting the rhythm of the glass fins suspended diagonally at a distance of one and a half metres.
They rise to a height of eight metres before the façade, interrupted by three metal-clad top-beams, establishing the horizontal lines of the architecture. Hinge-mounted, the fins balance the movements of the steel roof structure and are incorporated into the glass façade via clamps fixed on the front side. Almost 8,000 m2 of insulated glass – flat or curved and conically tapered on the building corners of the building – are aligned, creating an endless transparent high-tech strip. Until recently, it would have been technically impossible to produce the 8.5-metre long fins made from two-fold ESG glass. More than 400 pieces were manufactured in Gersthofen and then sent on their long journey to Abu Dhabi in open-top containers.
