The Louvre comes to the Gulf

By Fiammetta Rocco

The white domed roof of the magnificent Louvre Abu Dhabi is made of hunks of interlocking steel, each weighing as much as 70 tonnes. But to the visitor standing below it feels like a floating canopy—delicate, lacy and light. Jean Nouvel, a Pritzker prize-winning architect from France, is known for his ability to distil the essence of a country and give it physical shape. His design for the new National Museum of Qatar is based on the ubiquitous local desert rose and he is modelling the forthcoming National Art Museum of China on the Chinese symbol for the number one. The roof of Louvre Abu Dhabi was inspired by the interlaced palm leaves traditionally used as roofing material in the Gulf; in the sun-bleached atmosphere of the desert Mr Nouvel wanted his design to seem to be “raining light”.

Louvre Abu Dhabi will offer the first glimpse of the new purpose-built cultural district that the ruling al-Nahyan family of the United Arab Emirates (uae) has been planning for over a decade. A quarter of the size of Paris and one of two dozen similar zones being developed in cities around the world, Saadiyat Island Cultural District is being brought to life on a triangular sandbar off Abu Dhabi’s north-west coast. With its long beaches fronted by numerous villas, apartment buildings and a massive new golf course, the district will offer the crowded city an outlet for expansion. But the centrepiece will be three new museums, of which Louvre Abu Dhabi, due to open at the end of 2015, is just the first.