![Sheikh Zayed Bridge](https://aasarchitecture.com/wp-content/uploads/Sheikh-Zayed-Bridge-by-Zaha-Hadid-Architects-02-474x356.jpg)
As far back as 1967, a steel arch bridge was constructed to connect the then fledgling city of Abu Dhabi Island to the mainland, with a second bridge completed during the 1970s.
![Sheikh Zayed Bridge](https://aasarchitecture.com/wp-content/uploads/Sheikh-Zayed-Bridge-by-Zaha-Hadid-Architects-10-474x356.jpg)
A massive structure, rising 60m above water-level at its highest point, the bridge’s fluid silhouette makes it a destination point in its own right. It is also intended to serve as a catalyst for future urban growth in Abu Dhabi.
It rises from the mainland against an open panorama, gathering ground level road structures together, then lifting and propelling them across the channel on cantilevered road decks which run either side of the bridge’s spine structure.
Asymmetrical steel arches rise and spring from mass concrete piers to form a coherent sinusoidal waveform, which splays and splits from one shore along the central void, before diverging beneath the road decks on reaching the other.
Design and construction of a third gateway crossing linking Abu Dhabi Island to the Gulf south shore.
![Sheikh Zayed Bridge](https://aasarchitecture.com/wp-content/uploads/Sheikh-Zayed-Bridge-by-Zaha-Hadid-Architects-08-474x316.jpg)
Architect: Zaha Hadid Architects
Design: Zaha Hadid
Project Architect: Graham Modlen
Project Team: Garin O’Aivazian, Zahira Nazer, Christos Passas, Sara Klomps, Steve Power
Engineer: Highpoint Rendel
Structural: Rendel Palmer Tritton
Lighting: Hollands Licht
Height: 64m
Length: 842m
Width: 61m
Year: 2010
Client: Sheikh Sultan Bin Zayed Al Nahyan