If you rebuild it ...

Many long term residents have fond memories of the Volcano fountain on the Corniche. Ten years after its destruction, it will be the subject of a workshop in the capital.

Every great city has its lost architectural wonders: New Yorkers mourn a clutch of them, from the flattened Singer Building to the long-demolished Ebbets Field, once the home of the Brooklyn Dodgers baseball team. Londoners lament the loss of the Euston Arch, especially as it made way for the brutal modern architecture of Euston Station. Similarly, plenty of Dubai residents still pine for the giant guitars and faux-Empire State building frontage of the Hard Rock Café, which was demolished last year, only 15 years after it opened.

Abu Dhabi is no exception and one lost structure, in particular, tends to capture the hearts of those who saw it and, indeed, those who did not.

The stone-paved Volcano Fountain once sat (or should that be spouted) on the Corniche. Built in the 1980s, it proved a popular meeting place among the city’s residents. It was demolished in 2004 but its impact remains: the structure has featured in lists of the world’s most beautiful fountains, jostling for space with the likes of Rome’s Trevi Fountain.

As The National reported this week, a workshop at Qasr Al Hosn will next week pay tribute to the volcano by asking residents to share their memories of the structure. But why not go one better and rebuild it?