malec
Feb 2, 2007, 7:31 PM
Read the articles, they say it all. Seems like all the world's top starchitects are working on this:
Celebrity Architects Reveal a Daring Cultural Xanadu for the Arab World
By HASSAN FATTAH nytimes.com (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/01/arts/design/01isla.html)
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/02/01/arts/Hadid600.jpg
Zaha Hadid’s design for a performing arts center for an island in Abu Dhabi.
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates, Jan. 31 — In this land of big ambition and deep pockets, planners on Wednesday unveiled designs for an audacious multibillion-dollar cultural district whose like has never been seen in the Arab world.
The designs presented here in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates and one of the world’s top oil producers, are to be built on an island just off the coast and include three museums designed by the celebrity architects Frank Gehry, Jean Nouvel and Tadao Ando, as well as a sprawling, spaceshiplike performing arts center designed by Zaha Hadid.
Mr. Gehry’s building is intended for an Adu Dhabi branch of the Guggenheim Museum featuring contemporary art and Mr. Nouvel’s for a classical museum, possibly an outpost of the Louvre Museum in Paris. Mr. Ando’s is to house a maritime museum reflecting the history of the Arabian gulf.
The project also calls for a national museum and a biennial exhibition space composed of 19 pavilions designed by smaller names and snaking along a canal that cuts through the island. Art schools and an art college are also planned.
In all, the project, known as the Cultural District of Saadiyat Island, would create an exhibition space intended to turn this once-sleepy desert city along the Persian Gulf into an international arts capital and tourist destination. If completed according to plan sometime in the next decade, consultants predict, it could be the world’s largest single arts-and-culture development project in recent memory.
At times astonishing, at times controversial, the district is part of a far broader $27 billion development project on the island that includes hotels, resorts, golf courses and housing that could accommodate 125,000 residents or more.
The museum designs, displayed at an exhibition attended by dignitaries and the United Arab Emirates leadership, are a striking departure from Abu Dhabi’s crumbling 1970s-style concrete buildings and more modern glass-and-steel high-rises. Still, because Saadiyat Island is undeveloped, architects faced the unusual challenge of an aesthetic and contextual tabula rasa.
The daring designs, some teeming with life and color, others more starkly formal, have one aspect in common: it probably would be hard to build them all in one district anywhere else.
“It’s like a clean slate in a country full of resources,” said Mr. Gehry, who appeared at the exhibition to show off his model for the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi. “It’s an opportunity for the world of art and culture that is not available anywhere else because you’re building a desert enclave without the contextual constraints of a city.”
No cost estimates were given for the buildings unveiled on Wednesday, but each is certain to run into the hundreds of millions of dollars.
For the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, Mr. Gehry envisions a 320,000-square-foot structure with 130,000 square feet of exhibition space built around a cluster of galleries, a space far larger than his Guggenheim Bilbao in Spain, which cost about $100 million. A jumble of blocks, glass awnings and open spaces, the Abu Dhabi Guggenheim would be centered on a core of galleries of varying height atop one another and forming a courtyard. A second ring of larger galleries is followed by a third ring of galleries housing raw industrial-looking spaces with exposed lighting and mechanical systems.
The design for the classical museum enters into a dialogue with its surroundings, suggesting a submerged archaeological field with a cluster of one-room buildings placed along a promenade. The complex is covered by a massive translucent dome etched in patterns that allow diffused light into the spaces below.
Mr. Ando’s maritime museum design borrows from the maritime history of the emirates, with a reflective surface merging sea and land and a shiplike interior with floating decks.
Ms. Hadid’s performing arts center concept, which seems part spaceship, part organism, is to house a music hall, concert hall, opera house and two theaters, one seating up to 6,300. Transparent and airy, the center hovers over the azure waters of the Persian Gulf.
“It’s an inspiration from nature and an organic design, with a fluid design, as well as a space with good sound,” Ms. Hadid said.
Abu Dhabi’s sheiks dreamed up this sweeping cultural project in late 2004, after brainstorming ways to attract more tourism to the emirate, which is the richest of the seven in the United Arab Emirates confederation, but has largely missed out on the flood of visitors attracted by its neighbor Dubai.
Flush with cash from the oil boom, the emirate has embarked on a development spree intended to update its infrastructure after years of limited development. Abu Dhabi’s tourist board insists it is not trying to one-up Dubai, but instead wants to complement Dubai’s emphasis on other forms of entertainment.
“The real strategic decision here is that Dubai has established itself as a tourist destination, and Abu Dhabi is complementing what Dubai is doing,” said Barry Lord, president of Lord Cultural Resources, which has helped manage the development of the cultural project. “Cultural tourists are wealthier, older, more educated, and they spend more. From an economic view, this makes sense.”
Abu Dhabi’s Tourism Development and Investment Company announced a deal to build the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi last year. Recently it reached a $1 billion accord to rent the name, art and expertise of the Louvre for a museum to be built on the island. Protests quickly arose in France that that country was selling its patrimony to the highest bidder. The emirate’s tourism officials played down the Louvre plan on Wednesday, insisting the deal was not final.
Mr. Lord noted that the arts project was taking shape against the backdrop of continued turbulence in the Middle East.
“They are very conscious here that this can change the cultural climate in the region,” Mr. Lord said. “To be able to add high culture at the high end of international culture, this is a tremendous change.”
After oil booms in the 1970s and 80s in which their proceeds were not always used wisely, Persian Gulf governments are now focusing on spending their surpluses on infrastructure projects and real-estate development. A new generation of leaders in the gulf, especially in the emirates, where a new ruler was installed only in late 2004 and where several ministers are still in their 30s, has looked beyond traditional real-estate projects to efforts that would help their cities stand out on the world stage.
Other Persian Gulf countries have turned to the arts too. In Qatar the final touches are being added to I. M. Pei’s latest structure, the Qatar Museum, built just off the coast of the capital, Doha, to house a new Islamic arts collection. In Sharjah, another emirate, which has fashioned itself as the cultural capital of the Persian Gulf, the Sharjah Art Museum continues to expand its collection and is planning its eighth biennial. And even Dubai is building a Culture Village, centered on an opera house also designed by Ms. Hadid and other arts and culture institutions.
“This is not just about tourism; it also has global cultural dimensions,” Mubarak Muhairi, the director general of the Abu Dhabi tourism authority, said. “We believe the best vehicle for crossing borders is art. And this region is in need of such artistic initiatives.”
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/02/01/arts/Hadid3650.jpg
Visitors survey an exhibition unveiling designs for a vast and architecturally ambitious cultural district planned for Saadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi, part of the United Arab Emirates.
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/02/01/arts/Hadid4.jpg
The cultural district is part of a larger plan for the Persian Gulf.
Top architects present designs for Abu Dhabi museums
Posted: Wednesday, January 31, 2007
http://www.tradearabia.com/source/2007-01/31/museum.jpg
Abu Dhabi - Four of the world’s most renowned architects have presented designs for iconic museums and a performing arts centre in Abu Dhabi.
The architects – Frank Gehry, Jean Nouvel, Tadao Ando and Zaha Hadid– were commissioned by Abu Dhabi’s Tourism Development & Investment Company (TDIC).
The centre will position the UAE capital’s Saadiyat Island, that lies just offshore the emirate, as a world-class cultural destination.
A special exhibition devoted to the concept designs of the projects, complete with building models, was opened today at the prestigious Emirates Palace Hotel in Abu Dhabi by Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Executive Council chairman.
“Saadiyat Island demonstrates the vision of His Highness Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the United Arab Emirates and Ruler of Abu Dhabi, to further establish Abu Dhabi’s position as a destination of international standing,” said Sheikh Mohammed.
“The aim of Saadiyat Island must be to create a cultural asset for the world. A gateway and beacon for cultural experience and exchange. Culture crosses all boundaries and therefore Saadiyat will belong to the people of the UAE, the greater Middle East and the world at large,” he added.
In addition to the museums and a performing arts centre for which concept designs have been presented, Saadiyat Island’s Cultural District will also feature the Sheikh Zayed National Museum – a museum devoted to the history and traditions of Abu Dhabi and the legacy of the emirate’s much-admired late ruler His Highness Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan, who was also the first President of the United Arab Emirates and often referred to as ‘The Father Of The Nation.’
“It is our intention to shortly embark on an international competition for the design of the Sheikh Zayed National Museum which reflects the importance and centrality we place on this facility,” explained Sheikh Sultan Bin Tahnoon Al Nahyan, chairman of Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority (ADTA) and TDIC.
“This museum will pay tribute to our grandfathers and ancestors who left a wealth of cultural heritage that we are proud of. Within the Sheikh Zayed National Museum we shall conserve this heritage and build on it, as it is the soul of this land and its future generations.”
All four architects are international award-winners with three being holders of the coveted Pritzker Prize – the highest honour within the architectural discipline.
Frank Gehry is designing the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi – a contemporary art museum, which will be the only one of its kind in the Middle East; the British/Iraqi born architect Zaha Hadid is designing Saadiyat’s Performing Arts Centre, which will present the finest in music, theatre and dance, Jean Nouvel of France is designing the Classical Museum, while Japan’s Tadao Ando is designing the Maritime Museum which will reflect the rich maritime history of the UAE and the Arabian Gulf.
The Gehry concept for the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi Museum, which at 320,000 sq ft will be the world’s largest Guggenheim museum, is designed around accommodating approximately 130,000 sq ft of exhibition space. It will feature permanent collections, galleries for special exhibitions, a centre for art and technology, a children’s art education facility, archives, library and research centre and a state-of-the-art conservation laboratory.
“Approaching the design of the museum for Abu Dhabi made it possible to consider options for design of a building that would not be possible in the United States or in Europe,” said Gehry. “It was clear from the beginning that this had to be a new invention. The landscape, the opportunity, the requirement, to build something that people all over the world would come to and the possible resource to accomplish it opened tracks that were not likely to be considered anywhere else. The site itself, virtually on the water or close to the water on all sides, in a desert landscape with the beautiful sea and the light quality of the place suggested some of the direction.”
In the Gehry design, four storeys of central core galleries are laid out around a courtyard. “These will be more classical contemporary galleries, completely air conditioned with skylights where possible and a sophisticated lighting system,” said Gehry. Two more rings of galleries span out from the core.
“The third ring is for larger galleries, built more like raw industrial space with exposed lighting and systems. They would be less finished. These galleries will be attractive as spawning homes for a new scale of contemporary art - art that would be, perhaps, made on site and of a scale that could not be achieved in the normally organised museums around the world.”
In Hadid’s Performing Arts Centre concept, a 62-m-high building is proposed housing five theatres – a music hall, concert hall, opera house, drama theatre and a flexible theatre with a combined seating capacity for 6,300 – that’s 1,100 more than London’s Royal Albert Hall. The centre may also house an Academy of Performing Arts.
“As it winds through the site, the architecture increases in complexity, building up height and depth and achieving multiple summits in the bodies housing the performance spaces, which spring from the structure like fruits on a vine and face westward, toward the water,” explained Hadid.
“The building becomes part of an inclining ensemble of structures that stretch from the Maritime Museum at its southern end to the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi at the northern tip. With its centre of mass at the water’s edge, the Performing Arts Centre focuses its volume along the central axis of the site. This arrangement interrupts the block matrix at the Arterial Road, opening views to the sea and the skyline of Abu Dhabi.
“The concert hall is above the lower four theatres, allowing daylight into its interior and dramatic views of the sea and city skyline from the huge window behind the stage. Local lobbies for each theatre are orientated towards the sea to give each visitor a constant visual contact with their surroundings.”
Nouvel’s design concept for the Classical Museum owes much to Saadiyat’s natural surroundings.
“The island offers a harsh landscape, tempered by its meeting with the channel, a striking image of the aridity of the earth versus the fluidity of the waters,” said Nouvel. “These fired the imagination towards unknown cities buried deep into the sands or sunk under water. These dreamy thoughts have merged into a simple plan of an archaeological field revived as a small city, a cluster of nearly one-row buildings along a leisurely promenade.
“This micro-city requires a micro-climate that would give the visitor a feeling of entering a different world. The building is covered with a large dome, a form common to all civilisations. This one is made of a web of different patterns interlaced into a translucent ceiling which lets a diffuse, magical light come through in the best tradition of great Arabian architecture. Water is given a crucial role, both in reflecting every part of the building and acting as a psyche, and in creating, with a little help from the wind, a comfortable micro-climate.”
Ando’s Maritime Museum concept takes its inspiration from Abu Dhabi’s natural surroundings, landscape and maritime traditions. It has a reflective surface visually merging sea and land. Its ship-like interior has floating decks which guide visitors through the exhibition space.
“Dhows float over the voids of the interior space and help create an intense visual experience by relating objects to one another and to the museum architecture as a whole,” explained Ando. “Below ground, there is a second space – a reception hall with an enormous aquarium. A traditional dhow floats over the aquarium and is seen from different perspectives.
“In order to emphasise the simple, but powerful, shape of the building, the surrounding landscape is organised in grid form. Rows of trees line the forecourt of the site, creating an oasis-like border that allows visitors to transition gradually between the dynamic city and the more serene and contemplative space of the museum.”
One of the world’s most experienced museum consultants, Lord Cultural Resources, has been appointed to plan content and operational matters for the Sheikh Zayed National Museum and the Maritime Museum.
The USA-headquartered award-winning architecture, urban design, engineering and interiors firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP (SOM) has created the final master plan for the Cultural District.
Saadiyat Island’s Cultural District – one of six distinct districts master planned for the signature destination – will also feature a Biennale Park and 19 international pavilions which will be criss-crossed by a 1.5 km long navigable canal. The 19 pavilions, which will host a range of art and cultural events and activities, will be designed by some of today’s leading architects. These include UAE’s Khalid Alnajjar Russia’s Yuri Avvakumov, the USA’s Greg Lynn whom Forbes Magazine named one of the 10 most influential living architects, New York’s Hani Rashid, the UK’s David Adjaye, China’s Pei-Zhu and Korea’s Seung H-Sang.
“It is also our long-term ambition to develop a creative campus of graduate schools in the fine arts within Saadiyat Island’s Cultural District,” said Sheikh Sultan. “These will be devoted to art, architecture, music and drama. Special attention will also be given to developing educational outreach programmes for the youth of the entire Gulf region.”
Sheikh Sultan added that the Saadiyat Cultural District will act as a “bridge crossing a cultural divide” providing a captivating mix of Arab and Western cultures.
“The contemporary programmes in the Saadiyat Island Cultural District in both the visual and performing arts must be grounded in the cultural traditions of the Middle East as well as the world at large,” he said.
The museums on Saadiyat Island’s Cultural District are scheduled to open under a phased programme starting in 2012. “The development of Saadiyat Island will progress at a considered pace which acknowledges our national environment, heritage and culture,” added Sheikh Sultan.
The Saadiyat Island Cultural District exhibition will be at the Emirates Palace Hotel in Abu Dhabi. The exhibition, which is free-of-charge, is open from 10 am until 10 pm daily with the exception of Mondays when it will be closed.-TradeArabia News Service
Some renders of the various museums:
http://img523.imageshack.us/img523/4889/85111000performingartsckm2.jpg
http://www.worldarchitecturenews.com/news_images/851_1_Zaha%20Performing%20Arts%20Center%20interior.jpg
http://www.worldarchitecturenews.com/news_images/851_2_1000%20Gehry%20Guggenheim%20Abu%20Dhabi%201.jpg
http://www.worldarchitecturenews.com/news_images/851_3_1000%20Gehry%20Guggenheim%20Abu%20Dhabi%202.jpg
http://www.worldarchitecturenews.com/news_images/851_4_1000%20Jean%20Nouvel%20Classical%20Arts%20Museum%201.jpg
http://www.worldarchitecturenews.com/news_images/851_5_1000%20Jean%20Nouvel%20Classical%20Arts%20Museum%202.jpg
http://www.worldarchitecturenews.com/news_images/851_6_1000%20Tadao%20Maritime%20Museum%201.jpg
Some more:
http://img115.imageshack.us/img115/3640/85121000performingartscie4.jpg
http://img523.imageshack.us/img523/7025/85131000performingartsclb0.jpg
Thoughts?
Celebrity Architects Reveal a Daring Cultural Xanadu for the Arab World
By HASSAN FATTAH nytimes.com (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/01/arts/design/01isla.html)
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/02/01/arts/Hadid600.jpg
Zaha Hadid’s design for a performing arts center for an island in Abu Dhabi.
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates, Jan. 31 — In this land of big ambition and deep pockets, planners on Wednesday unveiled designs for an audacious multibillion-dollar cultural district whose like has never been seen in the Arab world.
The designs presented here in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates and one of the world’s top oil producers, are to be built on an island just off the coast and include three museums designed by the celebrity architects Frank Gehry, Jean Nouvel and Tadao Ando, as well as a sprawling, spaceshiplike performing arts center designed by Zaha Hadid.
Mr. Gehry’s building is intended for an Adu Dhabi branch of the Guggenheim Museum featuring contemporary art and Mr. Nouvel’s for a classical museum, possibly an outpost of the Louvre Museum in Paris. Mr. Ando’s is to house a maritime museum reflecting the history of the Arabian gulf.
The project also calls for a national museum and a biennial exhibition space composed of 19 pavilions designed by smaller names and snaking along a canal that cuts through the island. Art schools and an art college are also planned.
In all, the project, known as the Cultural District of Saadiyat Island, would create an exhibition space intended to turn this once-sleepy desert city along the Persian Gulf into an international arts capital and tourist destination. If completed according to plan sometime in the next decade, consultants predict, it could be the world’s largest single arts-and-culture development project in recent memory.
At times astonishing, at times controversial, the district is part of a far broader $27 billion development project on the island that includes hotels, resorts, golf courses and housing that could accommodate 125,000 residents or more.
The museum designs, displayed at an exhibition attended by dignitaries and the United Arab Emirates leadership, are a striking departure from Abu Dhabi’s crumbling 1970s-style concrete buildings and more modern glass-and-steel high-rises. Still, because Saadiyat Island is undeveloped, architects faced the unusual challenge of an aesthetic and contextual tabula rasa.
The daring designs, some teeming with life and color, others more starkly formal, have one aspect in common: it probably would be hard to build them all in one district anywhere else.
“It’s like a clean slate in a country full of resources,” said Mr. Gehry, who appeared at the exhibition to show off his model for the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi. “It’s an opportunity for the world of art and culture that is not available anywhere else because you’re building a desert enclave without the contextual constraints of a city.”
No cost estimates were given for the buildings unveiled on Wednesday, but each is certain to run into the hundreds of millions of dollars.
For the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, Mr. Gehry envisions a 320,000-square-foot structure with 130,000 square feet of exhibition space built around a cluster of galleries, a space far larger than his Guggenheim Bilbao in Spain, which cost about $100 million. A jumble of blocks, glass awnings and open spaces, the Abu Dhabi Guggenheim would be centered on a core of galleries of varying height atop one another and forming a courtyard. A second ring of larger galleries is followed by a third ring of galleries housing raw industrial-looking spaces with exposed lighting and mechanical systems.
The design for the classical museum enters into a dialogue with its surroundings, suggesting a submerged archaeological field with a cluster of one-room buildings placed along a promenade. The complex is covered by a massive translucent dome etched in patterns that allow diffused light into the spaces below.
Mr. Ando’s maritime museum design borrows from the maritime history of the emirates, with a reflective surface merging sea and land and a shiplike interior with floating decks.
Ms. Hadid’s performing arts center concept, which seems part spaceship, part organism, is to house a music hall, concert hall, opera house and two theaters, one seating up to 6,300. Transparent and airy, the center hovers over the azure waters of the Persian Gulf.
“It’s an inspiration from nature and an organic design, with a fluid design, as well as a space with good sound,” Ms. Hadid said.
Abu Dhabi’s sheiks dreamed up this sweeping cultural project in late 2004, after brainstorming ways to attract more tourism to the emirate, which is the richest of the seven in the United Arab Emirates confederation, but has largely missed out on the flood of visitors attracted by its neighbor Dubai.
Flush with cash from the oil boom, the emirate has embarked on a development spree intended to update its infrastructure after years of limited development. Abu Dhabi’s tourist board insists it is not trying to one-up Dubai, but instead wants to complement Dubai’s emphasis on other forms of entertainment.
“The real strategic decision here is that Dubai has established itself as a tourist destination, and Abu Dhabi is complementing what Dubai is doing,” said Barry Lord, president of Lord Cultural Resources, which has helped manage the development of the cultural project. “Cultural tourists are wealthier, older, more educated, and they spend more. From an economic view, this makes sense.”
Abu Dhabi’s Tourism Development and Investment Company announced a deal to build the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi last year. Recently it reached a $1 billion accord to rent the name, art and expertise of the Louvre for a museum to be built on the island. Protests quickly arose in France that that country was selling its patrimony to the highest bidder. The emirate’s tourism officials played down the Louvre plan on Wednesday, insisting the deal was not final.
Mr. Lord noted that the arts project was taking shape against the backdrop of continued turbulence in the Middle East.
“They are very conscious here that this can change the cultural climate in the region,” Mr. Lord said. “To be able to add high culture at the high end of international culture, this is a tremendous change.”
After oil booms in the 1970s and 80s in which their proceeds were not always used wisely, Persian Gulf governments are now focusing on spending their surpluses on infrastructure projects and real-estate development. A new generation of leaders in the gulf, especially in the emirates, where a new ruler was installed only in late 2004 and where several ministers are still in their 30s, has looked beyond traditional real-estate projects to efforts that would help their cities stand out on the world stage.
Other Persian Gulf countries have turned to the arts too. In Qatar the final touches are being added to I. M. Pei’s latest structure, the Qatar Museum, built just off the coast of the capital, Doha, to house a new Islamic arts collection. In Sharjah, another emirate, which has fashioned itself as the cultural capital of the Persian Gulf, the Sharjah Art Museum continues to expand its collection and is planning its eighth biennial. And even Dubai is building a Culture Village, centered on an opera house also designed by Ms. Hadid and other arts and culture institutions.
“This is not just about tourism; it also has global cultural dimensions,” Mubarak Muhairi, the director general of the Abu Dhabi tourism authority, said. “We believe the best vehicle for crossing borders is art. And this region is in need of such artistic initiatives.”
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/02/01/arts/Hadid3650.jpg
Visitors survey an exhibition unveiling designs for a vast and architecturally ambitious cultural district planned for Saadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi, part of the United Arab Emirates.
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/02/01/arts/Hadid4.jpg
The cultural district is part of a larger plan for the Persian Gulf.
Top architects present designs for Abu Dhabi museums
Posted: Wednesday, January 31, 2007
http://www.tradearabia.com/source/2007-01/31/museum.jpg
Abu Dhabi - Four of the world’s most renowned architects have presented designs for iconic museums and a performing arts centre in Abu Dhabi.
The architects – Frank Gehry, Jean Nouvel, Tadao Ando and Zaha Hadid– were commissioned by Abu Dhabi’s Tourism Development & Investment Company (TDIC).
The centre will position the UAE capital’s Saadiyat Island, that lies just offshore the emirate, as a world-class cultural destination.
A special exhibition devoted to the concept designs of the projects, complete with building models, was opened today at the prestigious Emirates Palace Hotel in Abu Dhabi by Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Executive Council chairman.
“Saadiyat Island demonstrates the vision of His Highness Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the United Arab Emirates and Ruler of Abu Dhabi, to further establish Abu Dhabi’s position as a destination of international standing,” said Sheikh Mohammed.
“The aim of Saadiyat Island must be to create a cultural asset for the world. A gateway and beacon for cultural experience and exchange. Culture crosses all boundaries and therefore Saadiyat will belong to the people of the UAE, the greater Middle East and the world at large,” he added.
In addition to the museums and a performing arts centre for which concept designs have been presented, Saadiyat Island’s Cultural District will also feature the Sheikh Zayed National Museum – a museum devoted to the history and traditions of Abu Dhabi and the legacy of the emirate’s much-admired late ruler His Highness Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan, who was also the first President of the United Arab Emirates and often referred to as ‘The Father Of The Nation.’
“It is our intention to shortly embark on an international competition for the design of the Sheikh Zayed National Museum which reflects the importance and centrality we place on this facility,” explained Sheikh Sultan Bin Tahnoon Al Nahyan, chairman of Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority (ADTA) and TDIC.
“This museum will pay tribute to our grandfathers and ancestors who left a wealth of cultural heritage that we are proud of. Within the Sheikh Zayed National Museum we shall conserve this heritage and build on it, as it is the soul of this land and its future generations.”
All four architects are international award-winners with three being holders of the coveted Pritzker Prize – the highest honour within the architectural discipline.
Frank Gehry is designing the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi – a contemporary art museum, which will be the only one of its kind in the Middle East; the British/Iraqi born architect Zaha Hadid is designing Saadiyat’s Performing Arts Centre, which will present the finest in music, theatre and dance, Jean Nouvel of France is designing the Classical Museum, while Japan’s Tadao Ando is designing the Maritime Museum which will reflect the rich maritime history of the UAE and the Arabian Gulf.
The Gehry concept for the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi Museum, which at 320,000 sq ft will be the world’s largest Guggenheim museum, is designed around accommodating approximately 130,000 sq ft of exhibition space. It will feature permanent collections, galleries for special exhibitions, a centre for art and technology, a children’s art education facility, archives, library and research centre and a state-of-the-art conservation laboratory.
“Approaching the design of the museum for Abu Dhabi made it possible to consider options for design of a building that would not be possible in the United States or in Europe,” said Gehry. “It was clear from the beginning that this had to be a new invention. The landscape, the opportunity, the requirement, to build something that people all over the world would come to and the possible resource to accomplish it opened tracks that were not likely to be considered anywhere else. The site itself, virtually on the water or close to the water on all sides, in a desert landscape with the beautiful sea and the light quality of the place suggested some of the direction.”
In the Gehry design, four storeys of central core galleries are laid out around a courtyard. “These will be more classical contemporary galleries, completely air conditioned with skylights where possible and a sophisticated lighting system,” said Gehry. Two more rings of galleries span out from the core.
“The third ring is for larger galleries, built more like raw industrial space with exposed lighting and systems. They would be less finished. These galleries will be attractive as spawning homes for a new scale of contemporary art - art that would be, perhaps, made on site and of a scale that could not be achieved in the normally organised museums around the world.”
In Hadid’s Performing Arts Centre concept, a 62-m-high building is proposed housing five theatres – a music hall, concert hall, opera house, drama theatre and a flexible theatre with a combined seating capacity for 6,300 – that’s 1,100 more than London’s Royal Albert Hall. The centre may also house an Academy of Performing Arts.
“As it winds through the site, the architecture increases in complexity, building up height and depth and achieving multiple summits in the bodies housing the performance spaces, which spring from the structure like fruits on a vine and face westward, toward the water,” explained Hadid.
“The building becomes part of an inclining ensemble of structures that stretch from the Maritime Museum at its southern end to the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi at the northern tip. With its centre of mass at the water’s edge, the Performing Arts Centre focuses its volume along the central axis of the site. This arrangement interrupts the block matrix at the Arterial Road, opening views to the sea and the skyline of Abu Dhabi.
“The concert hall is above the lower four theatres, allowing daylight into its interior and dramatic views of the sea and city skyline from the huge window behind the stage. Local lobbies for each theatre are orientated towards the sea to give each visitor a constant visual contact with their surroundings.”
Nouvel’s design concept for the Classical Museum owes much to Saadiyat’s natural surroundings.
“The island offers a harsh landscape, tempered by its meeting with the channel, a striking image of the aridity of the earth versus the fluidity of the waters,” said Nouvel. “These fired the imagination towards unknown cities buried deep into the sands or sunk under water. These dreamy thoughts have merged into a simple plan of an archaeological field revived as a small city, a cluster of nearly one-row buildings along a leisurely promenade.
“This micro-city requires a micro-climate that would give the visitor a feeling of entering a different world. The building is covered with a large dome, a form common to all civilisations. This one is made of a web of different patterns interlaced into a translucent ceiling which lets a diffuse, magical light come through in the best tradition of great Arabian architecture. Water is given a crucial role, both in reflecting every part of the building and acting as a psyche, and in creating, with a little help from the wind, a comfortable micro-climate.”
Ando’s Maritime Museum concept takes its inspiration from Abu Dhabi’s natural surroundings, landscape and maritime traditions. It has a reflective surface visually merging sea and land. Its ship-like interior has floating decks which guide visitors through the exhibition space.
“Dhows float over the voids of the interior space and help create an intense visual experience by relating objects to one another and to the museum architecture as a whole,” explained Ando. “Below ground, there is a second space – a reception hall with an enormous aquarium. A traditional dhow floats over the aquarium and is seen from different perspectives.
“In order to emphasise the simple, but powerful, shape of the building, the surrounding landscape is organised in grid form. Rows of trees line the forecourt of the site, creating an oasis-like border that allows visitors to transition gradually between the dynamic city and the more serene and contemplative space of the museum.”
One of the world’s most experienced museum consultants, Lord Cultural Resources, has been appointed to plan content and operational matters for the Sheikh Zayed National Museum and the Maritime Museum.
The USA-headquartered award-winning architecture, urban design, engineering and interiors firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP (SOM) has created the final master plan for the Cultural District.
Saadiyat Island’s Cultural District – one of six distinct districts master planned for the signature destination – will also feature a Biennale Park and 19 international pavilions which will be criss-crossed by a 1.5 km long navigable canal. The 19 pavilions, which will host a range of art and cultural events and activities, will be designed by some of today’s leading architects. These include UAE’s Khalid Alnajjar Russia’s Yuri Avvakumov, the USA’s Greg Lynn whom Forbes Magazine named one of the 10 most influential living architects, New York’s Hani Rashid, the UK’s David Adjaye, China’s Pei-Zhu and Korea’s Seung H-Sang.
“It is also our long-term ambition to develop a creative campus of graduate schools in the fine arts within Saadiyat Island’s Cultural District,” said Sheikh Sultan. “These will be devoted to art, architecture, music and drama. Special attention will also be given to developing educational outreach programmes for the youth of the entire Gulf region.”
Sheikh Sultan added that the Saadiyat Cultural District will act as a “bridge crossing a cultural divide” providing a captivating mix of Arab and Western cultures.
“The contemporary programmes in the Saadiyat Island Cultural District in both the visual and performing arts must be grounded in the cultural traditions of the Middle East as well as the world at large,” he said.
The museums on Saadiyat Island’s Cultural District are scheduled to open under a phased programme starting in 2012. “The development of Saadiyat Island will progress at a considered pace which acknowledges our national environment, heritage and culture,” added Sheikh Sultan.
The Saadiyat Island Cultural District exhibition will be at the Emirates Palace Hotel in Abu Dhabi. The exhibition, which is free-of-charge, is open from 10 am until 10 pm daily with the exception of Mondays when it will be closed.-TradeArabia News Service
Some renders of the various museums:
http://img523.imageshack.us/img523/4889/85111000performingartsckm2.jpg
http://www.worldarchitecturenews.com/news_images/851_1_Zaha%20Performing%20Arts%20Center%20interior.jpg
http://www.worldarchitecturenews.com/news_images/851_2_1000%20Gehry%20Guggenheim%20Abu%20Dhabi%201.jpg
http://www.worldarchitecturenews.com/news_images/851_3_1000%20Gehry%20Guggenheim%20Abu%20Dhabi%202.jpg
http://www.worldarchitecturenews.com/news_images/851_4_1000%20Jean%20Nouvel%20Classical%20Arts%20Museum%201.jpg
http://www.worldarchitecturenews.com/news_images/851_5_1000%20Jean%20Nouvel%20Classical%20Arts%20Museum%202.jpg
http://www.worldarchitecturenews.com/news_images/851_6_1000%20Tadao%20Maritime%20Museum%201.jpg
Some more:
http://img115.imageshack.us/img115/3640/85121000performingartscie4.jpg
http://img523.imageshack.us/img523/7025/85131000performingartsclb0.jpg
Thoughts?