You may have heard of some of the UAE’s grand schemes (which are realized by the way) including: an indoor ski slope with real snow, the tallest building in the world (soon to be completed), islands that form the shape of a palm tree and the continents, and the world’s largest mosque (containing the world’s largest carpet).
One of the amazing future plans for Abu Dhabi is the Island of Happiness (Saadiyat Island) Cultural District, which will be home to the Louvre Abu Dhabi, the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, a maritime museum, a cultural museum, and a performance center. Previously, the island was a small plane of sand, where turtles nested and a few residents lived. It will now be transformed into an architectural wonder.
Images show the Louvre Abu Dhabi will look like a hovering, glowing, white UFO disk casting dappled light into the space below. The performance center looks like a robotic alien snake head with sleek lines. 3D dioramas of the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi show a haphazard pile of giant blocks and colored plastic cones, more akin to an imaginative child’s creation than something an engineer could actually build.
The artistic director of Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, Thomas Krens, described it as “the kind of thing we’ve never seen before. The only expression I can think of to describe it is pharonic.” It is to be “A museum for global contemporary art…the same emphasis for China, Central Asia, India, Africa, Russia, Eastern Europe, and America.” Krens is looking for something even larger than the Guggenheim Bilbao, which he wanted to be like the Chartres Cathedral, like nothing a villager had ever seen before, “technology, cosmology, science and religion, all thrown together. Breathtaking.” See interview
Of all the rumors of dramatic developments which may come to pass in Abu Dhabi,a desert mountain transformed into a ski slope; a building taller than the mile high tower in Saudi Arabia; college campuses, state of the art hospitals, and zero emission cities; I am most enthralled by the artistic endeavors of the talented architects working on Saadiyat.
