Abu Dhabi has built a world-class museum island in a decade – and it’s also adding in some good urbanism
Last weekend we hosted 30 of our readers in Abu Dhabi. The Monocle Weekender was perfectly timed to coincide with the opening of the new Natural History Museum, designed by Dutch firm Mecanoo. The museum is on Saadiyat Island, which is also home to the Louvre Abu Dhabi, the Zayed National Museum (launching this week), TeamLab Phenomena (an immersive art experience that’s a lot more fun than it sounds, even if you have to take your socks off) and the Abrahamic Family House – a mosque, church and synagogue designed by David Adjaye. All of this has been created in a decade.
These cultural assets are all cheek by jowl, in a good way. One of the things that came up repeatedly on this trip was how you’ll soon be able to walk between the various sites – a shaded path is being created. The joy of meandering, of strolling, has often been forgotten in projects delivered across the region. In Dubai recently, I tried to amble with a colleague from our hotel to an appointment in a nearby bar but what should have been an easy skip ended up with us edging along a highway in the dark and sweating a lot before making it back to safety. Thankfully, the bits in between developments are now being delivered in more interesting ways here. This is important because it’s in these spaces, in pocket parks and at coffee stands, that community takes root and we make meaningful connections to place and other people.
The Monocle Weekender crew got to visit the Natural History Museum on the day that it opened to the public. Readers had come from the US, China, Romania, Belgium, Turkey, the UK and Dubai down the road. They were of all ages and were up for new experiences. It was amazing to see how they responded to the design of the museum and the way that it tells the story of evolution from the Big Bang to today. It turns out that we all rediscover our inner child when we come across vast dinosaur skeletons or are encouraged to touch a meteorite. Wonder is a rare emotion but we felt it in abundance as we walked through the museum’s white galleries and across its terrazzo floors, under the gaze of polar bears and models of whales.
Also running while we were in town was the Abu Dhabi Art fair, which becomes Frieze Abu Dhabi next year. Last Saturday we were given a tour of it before it opened for the day to the public. It was great – there were impeccable blue-chip galleries present but also a healthy number of exhibitors from the region. Everyone we spoke to said that it was the best iteration yet of the event, whose roots go back to 2007. Later in the week, at meetings in Dubai, people didn’t even try to conceal their jealousy at how nicely Abu Dhabi’s cultural push was coming together. “We need to step up our game,” was a common refrain.
Just before the Weekender kicked off, I visited another event, Nomad. This travelling design fair had taken over the decommissioned Terminal 1 at the old Zayed International Airport, a modernist landmark from the 1970s designed by architect Paul Andreu. There were two particularly impressive things about it. First, the work: we saw so many galleries and designers I’d never heard of from the Gulf, Istanbul and Beirut, alongside exhibitors from Milan and Paris. This made Nomad feel unique. Second, there was the use of the building. How great it was that this wasn’t in an exhibition centre, a white cube, but in a design gem. Reuse, repurpose: that’s the way ahead.
It was a packed weekend during which friendships were forged and great meals shared. But the aim of these Weekenders is also to give people – myself included – the chance to see a city afresh, meet the folk at the heart of the story and come home with some new perspectives. And we delivered on that.
To read more columns by Andrew Tuck, click here.
