Acclaimed architect Sir David Adjaye discussed his vision for the highly anticipated Abrahamic Family House, the interfaith centre due to open this year.
He wants the space — which includes a mosque, church and synagogue — to be a place that connects people, and welcomes discussion about their roots and faith.
Currently being built on Saadiyat Island, it aims to represent and preserve the three Abrahamic religions — Islam, Christianity and Judaism.
The centre was born as a physical manifestation of the Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together — which was signed in Abu Dhabi by Pope Francis of the Catholic Church and Sheikh Ahmed el-Tayeb, Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, in February 2019.
In September that year, Adjaye Associates won the Abrahamic Family House competition, with a design that was unveiled at an event in New York City.
Speaking to art historian, curator, and museum director Chris Dercon at the Culture Summit Abu Dhabi, Adjaye said the team was "humbled and honoured" to have won.
“Essentially, the inspiration was to understand that the three religions really emanate from this extraordinary region,” Adjaye said.
The renders and video Adjaye shared during his conversation showed arresting spaces and forms, that have been directly inspired by the commonality between the three religions.
Adjaye’s vision of the shared elements of the three faiths expresses itself through a common architectural language between the three monumental structures, creating visual harmony, while still evoking distinctive design elements that speak directly to their individuality.
“I wanted to create something that will really distil the essence of the three religions and create a certain purity or certain purity to the idea,” he said. “Our buildings are quite modest but they needed to have a presence that would really complement the relationship of the others, but also have a distinct language.”
The architecture is powerful yet humble and welcoming, filled with light as an element and delicate in form.
The houses of worship are designed as three clear geometric cubes that sit on a plinth, connected by pathways and gardens. The structures share equal external dimensions — height, width and a unifying roof — emphasising through design that no faith is more dominant than the other.
While their shapes are identical, the structures are not. Although unified by their form, they stand unaligned with different orientations.
The mosque will be orientated toward Makkah, the synagogue's bema towards Jerusalem and the church's altar towards the east and the sun. Each house of worship will have its own separate entrance, but the site has been designed to slope up toward a podium in the centre, where all three structures can be seen from the garden at once.
Meanwhile, each structure's exterior takes the essence of the design elements associated with their respective faiths and interprets them through the facade in an almost minimalistic, though commanding, way.
“This is about respecting these three extraordinary religions with their histories and their cultures and their evolution,” Adjaye said. “It’s to bring them into a space of dialogue and to bring them into a space where they see each other. So that really was important.”
Nature plays a pivotal role in the design. The garden in the Abrahamic Family House connects the three spaces of worship, where people can have open dialogues and celebrate the collective history, culture and identity of the Abrahamic faiths.
“In the centre of that garden there's a gathering space for several hundreds of people,” he said. “The idea is to use that space for dialogue," he added.
And, while in each house of worship visitors can learn about each faith, there will also be a fourth space not connected to any of the religions. This educational centre will host a variety of programmes and events acting as a space devoted to mutual understanding and peace.
Adjaye also discussed how the Abrahamic Family House is a global reflection of a new generation interested in remaking the idea of “the city” — particularly how cities need to create spaces that consider, include and welcome one another.
“What's really beautiful about this monumental call that has been made by the government of Abu Dhabi is that it is a place that really speaks about the different cultures of people,” Adjaye said. “And religion is part of the culture of people.”
The 2022 edition of the Culture Summit - in pictures
The specs
Engine: 3-litre twin-turbo V6
Power: 400hp
Torque: 475Nm
Transmission: 9-speed automatic
Price: From Dh215,900
On sale: Now
Avatar: Fire and Ash
Director: James Cameron
Starring: Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver, Zoe Saldana
Rating: 4.5/5
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Our family matters legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
First Person
Richard Flanagan
Chatto & Windus
TECH%20SPECS%3A%20APPLE%20WATCH%20SERIES%208
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The Beach Bum
Director: Harmony Korine
Stars: Matthew McConaughey, Isla Fisher, Snoop Dogg
Two stars
The Scale for Clinical Actionability of Molecular Targets
Liz%20Truss
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Red flags
- Promises of high, fixed or 'guaranteed' returns.
- Unregulated structured products or complex investments often used to bypass traditional safeguards.
- Lack of clear information, vague language, no access to audited financials.
- Overseas companies targeting investors in other jurisdictions - this can make legal recovery difficult.
- Hard-selling tactics - creating urgency, offering 'exclusive' deals.
Courtesy: Carol Glynn, founder of Conscious Finance Coaching
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How Tesla’s price correction has hit fund managers
Investing in disruptive technology can be a bumpy ride, as investors in Tesla were reminded on Friday, when its stock dropped 7.5 per cent in early trading to $575.
It recovered slightly but still ended the week 15 per cent lower and is down a third from its all-time high of $883 on January 26. The electric car maker’s market cap fell from $834 billion to about $567bn in that time, a drop of an astonishing $267bn, and a blow for those who bought Tesla stock late.
The collapse also hit fund managers that have gone big on Tesla, notably the UK-based Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust and Cathie Wood’s ARK Innovation ETF.
Tesla is the top holding in both funds, making up a hefty 10 per cent of total assets under management. Both funds have fallen by a quarter in the past month.
Matt Weller, global head of market research at GAIN Capital, recently warned that Tesla founder Elon Musk had “flown a bit too close to the sun”, after getting carried away by investing $1.5bn of the company’s money in Bitcoin.
He also predicted Tesla’s sales could struggle as traditional auto manufacturers ramp up electric car production, destroying its first mover advantage.
AJ Bell’s Russ Mould warns that many investors buy tech stocks when earnings forecasts are rising, almost regardless of valuation. “When it works, it really works. But when it goes wrong, elevated valuations leave little or no downside protection.”
A Tesla correction was probably baked in after last year’s astonishing share price surge, and many investors will see this as an opportunity to load up at a reduced price.
Dramatic swings are to be expected when investing in disruptive technology, as Ms Wood at ARK makes clear.
Every week, she sends subscribers a commentary listing “stocks in our strategies that have appreciated or dropped more than 15 per cent in a day” during the week.
Her latest commentary, issued on Friday, showed seven stocks displaying extreme volatility, led by ExOne, a leader in binder jetting 3D printing technology. It jumped 24 per cent, boosted by news that fellow 3D printing specialist Stratasys had beaten fourth-quarter revenues and earnings expectations, seen as good news for the sector.
By contrast, computational drug and material discovery company Schrödinger fell 27 per cent after quarterly and full-year results showed its core software sales and drug development pipeline slowing.
Despite that setback, Ms Wood remains positive, arguing that its “medicinal chemistry platform offers a powerful and unique view into chemical space”.
In her weekly video view, she remains bullish, stating that: “We are on the right side of change, and disruptive innovation is going to deliver exponential growth trajectories for many of our companies, in fact, most of them.”
Ms Wood remains committed to Tesla as she expects global electric car sales to compound at an average annual rate of 82 per cent for the next five years.
She said these are so “enormous that some people find them unbelievable”, and argues that this scepticism, especially among institutional investors, “festers” and creates a great opportunity for ARK.
Only you can decide whether you are a believer or a festering sceptic. If it’s the former, then buckle up.
Analysis
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