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Frank Gehry Designs Guggenheim Museum for Abu Dhabi

The museum is part of a massive $27 billion mixed-use island development project.

Mairi Beautyman -- Interior Design, 7/25/2006 12:00:00 AM

Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates in the Arabian Gulf, will soon have a Frank Gehry-designed Guggenheim Museum, called the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi (GAD). The 323,000-square-foot contemporary art facility, slated to open by 2011 in the Cultural District of Saadiyat Island, became official with a recently signed Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the New York-based Guggenheim Foundation.

Part of a plan to position the emirate as a leading international cultural destination, GAD will be both larger than any existing Guggenheim worldwide and the only Guggenheim museum in the region. A natural island just offshore the UAE capital, Saadiyat Island will also serve three other museums—a national museum, a classical art museum, and a maritime museum—as well as a performing arts center and an arts center park. About half the size of Bermuda, the island is part of a massive new $27 billion mixed-use development project, expected to be completed in 2018.

Internationally-renowned Gehry is the architect behind the critically-acclaimed Guggenheim Museum Bilbao.

“Abu Dhabi’s museum will join a highly exclusive Guggenheim museum network which currently includes New York, Venice in Italy, Bilbao in Spain, Berlin in Germany, and Las Vegas,” says His Highness Sheikh Sultan Bin Tahnoon Al Nahyan, chairman of the Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority and Abu Dhabi’s Tourism Development & Investment Company. “The MOU is testimony to Abu Dhabi’s ambition to become an upscale destination and to ensure that the Abu Dhabi name resonates worldwide.”