A cultural icon brought back to life – uniting heritage, place and people

Qasr Al Hosn, the oldest standing building on Abu Dhabi Island, served as a seat of rule and the home of the Al Nahyan family. It remains a defining symbol of the UAE’s identity. For more than a decade, Barker Langham worked closely with the Department of Culture and Tourism to reimagine the site as a living cultural quarter – carefully restored to speak powerfully to the present.

Our work began at the earliest stage, shaping the initial architectural brief and helping select the masterplanners CEBRA. We developed the business case, strategic vision, and operational model – ensuring alignment between purpose, place, and public value. From the initial architectural brief and in-depth archival research, our holistic planning approach carried through interpretation development, scriptwriting and curatorial training, integrating cultural, curatorial, economic and visitor-experience objectives across the fort and the adjacent Cultural Foundation.

Working closely with the Department of Culture and Tourism and key partners, Barker Langham developed a unified vision for Qasr Al Hosn that honoured its historical role while looking to the future. Our architectural brief and audience strategies guided every stage of design, planning and delivery – keeping the visitor experience at the forefront and aligning all elements around a shared purpose.

We also produced the business and operational plans for the entire Qasr Al Hosn site – including detailed visitor flow models, macroeconomic value projections and frameworks for organisational growth. These plans were key to ensuring that the project was not only sustainable but also regenerative – spurring wider investment and community benefit.

We led the curation and interpretation of the visitor experience, working with historians, archaeologists and the National Archives to shape a curatorial framework that embraced evidence, emotion and memory – connecting architectural features with archival testimony, and personal stories with national history. This interpretive strategy was key to making the visitor experience both accessible and resonant.

In 2016 and 2017, we helped shape the Qasr Al Hosn Festival – a celebration that quickly became one of Abu Dhabi’s most popular cultural events. Working with local communities, historians, and creatives, we brought the site’s stories to life through immersive exhibitions, performances, and interventions.

In just ten weeks, we delivered two major exhibitions. Abu Dhabi and the Story of its People traced the city’s growth through everyday lives and shifting landscapes, while Archives & Memories explored how photography, newspapers, and film preserve experience in different ways. We also created Anatomy of a Photograph, a dramatic installation that unpacked five iconic images of Abu Dhabi to reveal hidden details and forgotten narratives.

Beyond the exhibition halls, stories played out across the fort itself. We curated a large-scale multimedia show and created trails, talks, and site-wide interventions that filled Qasr Al Hosn with voices, memories, and movement – transforming it into a living archive of the city it helped shape.

In 2014, while exploring the National Maritime Museum archives, Barker Langham Director Liza Rogers came across a faint pencil sketch that quietly reshaped part of Abu Dhabi’s visual history. Made by British naval officer Lieutenant R. W. Whish in the mid-19th century, it didn’t show a lone fort but a line of slender watchtowers guarding the island’s seaward approaches. One of them still stands beside Maqtaa Bridge – the others are long gone.

This was the earliest known sketch of Abu Dhabi. It challenged familiar stories and revealed a more complex picture: a fortified coastal settlement with strategic reach, emerging in a turbulent Gulf.

The discovery helped us rethink Qasr Al Hosn not as an isolated structure, but part of a wider defensive network. It also inspired new digital trails that bring the city’s lost watchtowers back into view.

At Qasr Al Hosn, we led the curatorial development of the visitor experience, using the palace’s own fabric as a starting point. Every decision was shaped by deep research and a desire to let the site’s stories emerge naturally.

Working closely with historians and the ruling family, we uncovered rarely seen photographs and personal objects – like a ceremonial khanjar belonging to Sheikh Zayed the First, recreated by a local artisan.

To reflect the site’s layered history, we wove in soundscapes, poetry, and oral histories, giving voice to those often left out of the record. Augmented reality allowed visitors to walk through the lost majlis of Sheikh Shakhbut or see palace tables set once more for a royal feast.

The result was an experience rooted in research and alive with memory, rhythm, and imagination.

Reopened in 2018 with a national ceremony attended by His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the UAE and Ruler of Abu Dhabi, Qasr Al Hosn has reasserted its place as the symbolic heart of the capital.

Its transformation was more than architectural – it reconnected the city with its origins, turning a once-inaccessible monument into a dynamic space for gathering, storytelling, and reflection. The revitalisation brought new life to the district, created jobs, and sparked a renewed sense of pride in the nation’s heritage.

Today, Qasr Al Hosn is more than a site of memory. It is a space for dialogue, for learning, and for imagining Abu Dhabi’s future through the lens of its past.

© CEBRA