While Paris gets its European farewell from the celebrated artist and sculptor Christo, Abu Dhabi, too, is about to get its architectural marvel from the artist as the world’s biggest sculpture is about to be built in the region.

A dream once, born Christo Vladimirov Javacheff in Bulgaria, wanted to construct the world’s biggest sculpture in the UAE, a country he fell in love with, in 1979. The dream is about to be fulfilled now, through the ‘The Mastaba Project’.

Long ago in1977, Christo envisioned a sculpture 150 metres high and 300 metres long using 410,000 multi-coloured oil barrels, as his website describes it as ‘mosaic of bright sparkling colours echoing Islamic architecture, The Mastaba [being] an ancient and familiar shape to the people of the region’.

While the renowned artist meticulously planned the project for so many decades, passed away in May last year, Christo’s nephew Valdimir Yavachev took it upon himself to fulfil his uncle’s dream. Valdimir who is the project director for both the Paris and Liwa initiatives believes the sculpture could become reality in between five and 10 years.

Valdimir who always discussed the software and hardware stages of a project with his uncle shared that The Mastaba is still at the software point but are ready with their engineering as the location is fixed.

Christo and his French wife Jeanne-Claude, also a collaborator of the project first visited the UAE in 1979 who then came up with the idea of The Mastaba two years later. The two identified a site in Al Gharbia, approximately 160 kilometres (100 miles) south of the city of Abu Dhabi, near the oasis of Liwa.

The envisaged project will be the largest sculpture in the world, made from 410,000 multi-coloured barrels to form a mosaic of bright sparkling colours, echoing Islamic architecture. The mastaba is an ancient and familiar shape to the people of the region.

The Mastaba will be 150 meters (492 feet) high, 225 meters (738 feet) deep at the 60-degree slanted walls and 300 meters (984 feet) wide at the vertical walls. The top of The Mastaba will be a horizontal surface 126.8 meters (416 feet) wide and 225 meters (738 feet) deep.

The colours and the positioning of the 55-gallon steel barrels were selected by Christo and Jeanne-Claude in 1979, the year in which the artists visited the Emirate for the first time