Flying Saucer’ which has been a part of Sharjah’s collective cultural memory since the mid-1970s, has won the Best Cultural Project Award for 2021.

The iconic structure, the ‘Flying Saucer’ which has been a part of Sharjah’s collective cultural memory since the mid-1970s, has won the Best Cultural Project Award for 2021 by the Architectural Digest magazine.

The building since its construction in the middle of the 1970s has been a part of the aesthetic and cultural memory of the Emirate of Sharjah.

The distinctive building that opened in 1978, one through many phases over the decades, from a café, newsstand, gift shop, to a fast-food restaurant, supermarket and pharmacy. In 2012, the building was acquired by Sharjah Art Foundation who began renovating it in 2018.

Post the renovation work, the building reopened to visitors as an art community centre for exhibitions and other presentations. The star-shaped structure has long been part of the collective cultural memory and identity of Sharjah.

The architecture draws on the space-age influence of the 1960s and 1970s western literature and popular culture, and Brutalist architecture of the same period.

Some of the significant elements of its design include a wide circular dome that seems to hover above a ring of eight columns, a star-shaped canopy projecting beyond a fully glazed panoramic façade and a bright and open interior space supported by angled V-shaped pillars.

Sharjah Art Foundation collaborated with Mona El Mousfy of SpaceContinuum Design Studio to renovate the space wherein they removed the metal covering that was added to the canopy by previous owners, allowing the space to have a 360-degree view of the exterior.

The renovation also includes an addition of an underground community space and annexe with skylights that allow the area to be lit from above.

The Flying Saucer competed with other iconic structures that included Forever Is Now in Giza, which transformed the site around the Pyramids into a public art landscape, the M7, a fashion and design museum in Doha, The Green Corner, a cultural space in Bahrain, and Shindagha Historic District on the shores of Dubai Creek.