Al Wahda Arches at the beginning of the Lusail Expressway in Onaiza

The Al Wahda Arches (also called 5/6 Arch, Qatar Arch, Gateway Arch) is a monumental pair of 20° inclined

steel Steel is an alloy made up of iron with added carbon to improve its strength and fracture resistance compared to other forms of iron. Many other elements may be present or added. Stainless steels that are corrosion- and oxidation-resistant ty ...

arches An arch is a vertical curved structure that spans an elevated space and may or may not support the weight above it, or in case of a horizontal arch like an arch dam, the hydrostatic pressure against it. Arches may be synonymous with vault ...

, spanning the "5/6 interchange" of the Lusail expressway,

Qatar Qatar (, ; ar, قطر, Qaṭar ; local vernacular pronunciation: ), officially the State of Qatar,) is a country in Western Asia. It occupies the Qatar Peninsula on the northeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East; it sh ...

which connects West Bay with Lusail City. It is the tallest monument in the country and has received a 2020

International Design Award The International Design Awards are a group of awards that recognize, celebrate and promote design visionaries and emerging talent in architecture, interior, product, graphic and fashion design. History A handful of designers, thinkers and entrepr ...

and 2018 ENR Global Best Project award. Intended to be viewed while in motion as an "immersive public artwork", the arches are connected to each other by a cable net – a reference to Qatar's

pearl diving Pearl hunting, also known as pearling, is the activity of recovering pearls from wild molluscs, usually oysters or mussels, in the sea or freshwater. Pearl hunting was prevalent in the Persian Gulf region and Japan for thousands of years. On the ...

heritage. The structure itself consists of 54 large steel pieces, weighing over 9,000 tons, while the base of the arches are clad in Limra Limestone from Turkey. The monument, suspended viewing platform, and associated visitor centre were commissioned by

Ashghal Ashghal ( ar, هيئة الأشغال العامة) is the Public Works Authority of Qatar headquartered in Al Dafna, Doha. Ashghal was established based on the Emiri Decree issued by the Father Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani on 20 Janu ...

(the public works authority), designed by German architect Erik Behrens for

AECOM AECOM (, ; formerly AECOM Technology Corporation) is an American multinational infrastructure consulting firm. AECOM has approximately 51,000 employees, and is number 157 on the 2019 Fortune 500 list. The company's official name from 1990 t ...

, engineering by Maffeis Engineering and constructed by Eversendai – with an intended completion date of 2016. At a cost of $74m, construction began in December 2013 and after partial completion was inaugurated along with the expressway for National Day celebrations in December 2017. Due to construction occurring during the 2017 Qatar blockade the arches have taken on a local cultural significance of "resilience", and are now known as the 5/6 Arches (referring to 5 June when the diplomatic crisis began) along with "5/6 interchange" and the neighbouring "5/6 park". The construction expressway interchange and Arches replaced the "Rainbow (Arch) roundabout" which used to stand on the site. In 2018

and

Qatar Post Qatar Post (formerly Q-Post) is the national provider of postal services in Qatar. Its headquarters building, the General Post Office, has been on the Doha Corniche since 1988. The company was established in 1950 as the General Postal Corporat ...

issued a set of commemorative stamps featuring the arches which integrated with an associated

augmented reality Augmented reality (AR) is an interactive experience that combines the real world and computer-generated content. The content can span multiple sensory modalities, including visual, auditory, haptic, somatosensory and olfactory. AR can be de ...

phone application.

References

{{reflist 2020 in Qatar