City of Modern Light

Abu Dhabi

I stood on the rooftop terrace, the city unfolding before me in layers of steel, glass, and shadow. Abu Dhabi never stopped moving. The skyline shifted, growing and reaching higher with each passing year. The air was thick with the scent of the sea and the desert beyond, the sky deepening into shades of violet as the last light of day melted into gold.

This city had shaped me long before I ever had the chance to shape it. As a child, I had traced the outlines of its buildings with my fingertips against car windows, mesmerised by the way tradition and modernity stood side by side. Now I was no longer an observer. I was part of it.

I glanced down at the sketchbook in my hands and the charcoal smudges on my fingers. The lines were bold, the forms sweeping with ideas waiting to take shape. I had spent years studying the language of design but nothing in a classroom could teach what Abu Dhabi had shown me: that architecture wasn’t just about buildings. It was about movement and light, about the spaces between.

A gust of wind tugged at the pages as if urging me forward. Another tower would rise, another vision brought to life. But I simply stood there watching the city breathe, feeling the pulse of something greater than stone and steel. Something alive.

Prints available in the catalogue gallery