The Founder’s Memorial

This guide to The Founder's Memorial in Abu Dhabi centers on the suspended portrait of Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, assembled from more than a thousand bronze and steel shapes strung on cables above the walkway. It traces Zayed's path from a childhood in a desert mud fort to the founding of the UAE in December 1971, and the decades he spent persuading separate emirates to become one federation. Walk the elevated path to find his own words carved into it, alongside gardens planted with the trees he grew up under.