Workshop allows public to rekindle Abu Dhabi Volcano Fountain

Remembering the Abu Dhabi Volcano is a workshop that offers Abu Dhabi residents the opportunity to reminisce about one of the capital's best-loved landmarks, and in so doing, contribute to the UAE's national pavilion at the Venice Biennale.

The Abu Dhabi Volcano Fountain, which was demolished in 2004 . Courtesy Al Ittihad

Architectural trainspotters and heritage buffs take note. It isn't often that you get the chance to take part in a major international architecture festival, but that's precisely what's on offer at Remembering the Abu Dhabi Volcano, a public workshop taking place at the Qasr Al Hosn Exhibition on May 10.

Organised by Dr Michele Bambling, the curator of the UAE's national pavilion at the forthcoming 14th Venice Architecture Biennale, the aim of the workshop is to record people's memories of one of Abu Dhabi's most-loved but now lost landmarks, while giving them the opportunity to build their very own scale model of the fountain that used to grace the capital's ­Corniche.

“The public will come away having built their own mini volcano fountain replica,” Dr Bambling explains. “It’s a way to try to encourage people to share their memories and stories about a place that’s central to many people’s memories of Abu Dhabi. The only way we can retrieve very much information about the fountain and other non-extant places is through people’s memories and photographs.”

The Volcano Fountain is one of those lost Abu Dhabi landmarks that simply refuses to fade away. Despite its demolition in 2004, photographs of the fountain are still used by the world’s media to illustrate stories about Abu Dhabi – the UK’s Daily Mail newspaper used the image as recently as March 2013. The fountain also has its own Facebook page, a collection of amateur snaps and popular memories that has attracted more than 500 “likes” and continues to feature in lists of the world’s most beautiful fountains, alongside the Trevi Fountain in Rome and the Bellagio in Las Vegas.

According to the long-time Abu Dhabi resident Ramesh Menon, part of the reason for the Volcano Fountain’s cherished place in Abu Dhabi’s collective memory is the role that it played in the community for almost 20 years.

“Before the malls were built, the Volcano Fountain was the meeting place for Abu Dhabi residents and tourists alike, and before the internet, when snail mail was still popular, it was a place where people would gather to swap letters and to catch up on each other’s news.”

The memories gathered by Dr Bambling and her collaborator in the workshop, the architect Deborah Bentley from Abu Dhabi University, will then form part of an archive that will form the basis of the UAE national pavilion, a museum of memories, photographs, stories, articles and historic documents that will tell the story of Abu Dhabi’s architectural development from 1914 to the present. For Dr Bambling, however, the workshop is more than just an opportunity to gather material for the Biennale.

“We want to start a meaningful dialogue between the public and the professionals who are creating Abu Dhabi. We’re also gathering Abu Dhabi’s collective memory to bring the vernacular voice to the historical record.”

• Prior registration for the workshop is required. To register or for more information, call 02 697 6472 or email [e-mail]. For more details, visit the Qasr Al Hosn Exhibition page