When it opened in 1972, Mina Zayed transformed life in Abu Dhabi. The city’s new deep water port meant that for the first time it was possible for ocean-going cargo ships to discharge their cargos directly onto land. Previously, larger ships had unloaded onto smaller barges and dhows, whose draft was shallow enough to use a 1950s concrete and stone wharf near on what is now the Corniche near Airport Road. Inevitably this limited the size and volume of what could be brought in.
One of the first shipments to Mina Zayed is shown here; a colossal generator for the city’s first power station shipped in from Germany and manufactured by Babcock’s factory on the Rhine river. Until then, electricity was produced by smaller generators, which served a few buildings at best.
The construction of the first power station almost literally created a modern city at the flick of a switch.
* James Langton
