The Future of Abu Dhabi's Cultural District

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by Dianne Apen-Sadler

The Future of Abu Dhabi's Cultural District

24 Apr 2024

Home to Abrahamic Family House, Manarat Al Saadiyat, the newly opened Bassam Freiha Art Foundation, and the iconic Louvre Abu Dhabi, Saadiyat Cultural District is the heart of the arts in the UAE’s capital.

Nearly two decades in the making, the huge project is still yet to see the opening of several museums and art galleries in the coming years, including the much-awaited Guggenheim Abu Dhabi.

Here is your guide to what is coming up at Saadiyat Cultural District.

Guggenheim Abu Dhabi

First announced in 2006, Guggenheim Abu Dhabi is set to become the largest of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation’s collection of museums around the world. Much like its sister venues, including the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Guggenheim Bilbao and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection housed in the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni in Venice, the new museum will feature global modern and contemporary art. In keeping with its location, there will be a focus on pieces from West Asia, North Africa, and South Asia (WANASA), in the hopes of providing a platform for artists from this region, including those from the UAE and the Gulf.

The building itself is an architectural marvel, having been designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Frank Gehry. Inspired by the traditional wind towers found in the region, the clusters of galleries centre around a covered courtyard, with each of the spaces consisting of differing heights and shapes.

According to the latest update, the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi is set to be completed in 2025.

Source: mediaoffice.abudhabi

Natural History Museum

While the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi will focus on modern works, the Natural History Museum will instead take visitors on a 13.8 billion-year journey into the past. The largest of its kind in the region, the exhibitions will examine the earliest origins of our universe and the evolving story of our planet, and hopes to raise awareness of our impact on the natural world.

Highlights in the collection include "Stan", the 39-foot-long Tyrannosaurus rex which is one of the best preserved fossils from Late Cretaceous Period, and the Murchison Meteorite specimen, which contains a range of organic "stardust" compounds as well as pre-solar grains which formed over 7 billion years ago.

Designed by Dutch architectural firm Mecanoo, the building uses pentagonal shapes that resemble cellular structures throughout while also resembling natural rock formations. The latest update on construction from March this year is that the construction is on track to be completed by the end of 2025, with 65% of works completed already.

Source: mediaoffice.abudhabi

teamLab Phenomena Abu Dhabi

Tourists and residents were given a sneak peek of what to expect from teamLab Phenomena Abu Dhabi as part of Manar Abu Dhabi this winter, with several light installations from the international art collective taking over Samaliyah Island in late December. Truly immersive, visitors were able to interact with works such as Forest of Autonomous Resonating Life, a collection of colourful ovoids that changed when pushed, and Life is Continuous Light — Mangrove Forest, a walkway that saw nearby mangrove trees shine brighter, and emit a tone, as people strolled past.

As for the upcoming space, the ever-changing artwork spaces will be large scale and multi-sensory, blending art and technology. Visitors to Samaliyah Island or teamLab’s other venues in Beijing, Tokyo and Singapore will have some idea what that means — think bright, colourful, and super Instagrammable — but each of the installations will be unique to the UAE capital, so we will just have to wait and see what that means in reality.

The exact opening date is yet to be announced, but construction is 70% complete, as of December 2023.

Source: mediaoffice.abudhabi

Zayed National Museum

If you’ve been to Saadiyat Island recently, you will no doubt have spotted the iconic Zayed National Museum, with its distinctive design in the shape of the wings of a falcon. Once complete, the space will serve as the national museum of the UAE, focussing on the history and culture of the nation as well as the values of the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the UAE’s founding father.

The opening date is yet to be announced, but the Zayed National Museum website offers some insight into what to expect. Objects on display include a fossil of a rudist clam dating back 70 million years, a pearl from Marawah Island, one of the earliest ever found, and fragments of Chinese ceramics found in Ras Al Khaimah.

Source: mediaoffice.abudhabi

by Dianne Apen-Sadler