A name rented from Paris
In 2007 the governments of France and the United Arab Emirates signed an agreement to create a “universal museum” in Abu Dhabi. The emirate would build and pay for it; France would lend its expertise through Agence France-Muséums, a body formed by the main French national museums, lend works for the first years, and allow the use of the Louvre’s name for 30 years and six months. The museum opened to the public on 11 November 2017, three days after its inauguration by the presidents of France and the UAE.
So the Louvre Abu Dhabi is neither a branch of the Paris museum nor a copy of it. The building, the institution and the permanent collection belong to Abu Dhabi. The name, the advice and some of the works on show come from France. The Paris Louvre itself has a very different origin: it was a royal palace, opened to the public during the French Revolution.
A town of white buildings under one roof
Jean Nouvel, the French architect who won the commission, designed the museum as a small “medina”, that is, an old Arab town: a cluster of 55 white buildings, 23 of them galleries, separated by lanes and squares and set at the edge of the sea on Saadiyat Island, the emirate’s new cultural district. Water runs into the site, so from some angles the museum seems to float.
Over most of this town floats a single dome, 180 metres across. Rather than a solid shell, it is made of eight layers of metal lattice, four of stainless steel outside and four of aluminium inside, cut into a pattern of 7,850 star shapes of different sizes. When the sun passes through all eight layers, only small patches get through, and they move across the floor and walls as the day goes on. The museum calls it the “rain of light”. The whole dome weighs about 7,500 tonnes, yet it rests on only four hidden supports, so from below it seems to hover.
The idea comes from the region. Palm leaves woven into roofs and the wooden screens called mashrabiya, which let air through and keep sun out, are both ways of making shade from patterns. Geometric screens of this kind have a long history in the architecture described in early Islamic art. The dome also does practical work: in a climate where summer temperatures pass 40°C, it shades the plaza and the roofs below.
A story of the world, told in chapters
Inside, the museum does something the Paris Louvre does not. The Paris galleries are mostly arranged by department: Egyptian antiquities, Greek antiquities, Italian painting and so on. In Abu Dhabi, the galleries follow one chronological route in chapters, from the first villages and the first great powers to the age of global exchange and the modern world. In each room, objects from different cultures of the same time are shown side by side.
That arrangement is the museum’s argument: that the history of art is shared, and that cultures were in contact much more than separate national galleries suggest. It is close in spirit to the way this site maps the periods in the beginner’s guide to art history, and it is the clearest answer to “what is it?”: a museum about connections, rather than a palace of masterpieces.
Its own collection, and borrowed masterpieces
The works on display come from two sources. The museum has been building its own collection since 2009, buying across all periods, from ancient objects to modern paintings and contemporary installations. Alongside them, French museums lend works for limited periods, which is why the most famous pieces on show change over time.
The collection has also had its mysteries. In December 2017 Abu Dhabi’s culture department announced that the Salvator Mundi, the painting attributed to Leonardo da Vinci that had just sold for 450 million dollars, was “coming to the Louvre Abu Dhabi”. Its unveiling was cancelled the following year, and the painting has not been shown there since. The doubts about its attribution are part of the story told in the guide to where Leonardo’s paintings are now.
The questions it raises
A museum on this scale was not built without controversy. In France, some curators and critics objected in 2007 to “renting” the name and the works of national museums. During construction on Saadiyat Island, Human Rights Watch reported in 2015 on the conditions of migrant workers building the cultural district, and the authorities and companies involved said that standards had been improved. These debates are part of the museum’s history, and they are why it is discussed as much as it is visited.
For the visitor, the result is a building that works as a work of art in its own right, a collection with a clear idea, and a set of loans that makes each visit slightly different. Among the wave of new museums that marks contemporary art and architecture, it is one of the few that has changed how a museum can tell the story of art.
Where to see it
The Louvre Abu Dhabi is on Saadiyat Island, in the cultural district of Abu Dhabi, a short drive from the city centre. The dome and the plaza beneath it can be seen with a museum ticket, and the views across the water are part of the visit. Check opening times, tickets and current loans on the museum’s official website before you go. To compare it with the original, the guide to the Louvre in three hours covers the Paris museum.
Sources
- Louvre Abu Dhabi, official website, “The Building” and “About us”.
- Agence France-Muséums, “Louvre Abu Dhabi”.
- Ateliers Jean Nouvel, “Louvre Abu Dhabi” project description.
- Human Rights Watch, “Migrant Workers’ Rights on Saadiyat Island in the United Arab Emirates: 2015 Progress Report” (2015).
- Middle East Institute, “Louvre Abu Dhabi ready to make its mark” (2017).
