Louvre Museum ——- Abu Dhabi

I had to share with you my recent visit to the New Louvre while in Abu Dhabi. This was such an inspiring afternoon and one of the most impressive architecture I have ever seen.

The New Louvre Abu Dhabi open in November 2017 on the waterfront of Abu Dhabi’s Saadiyat Island, a man-made island on the coast of the United Arab Emirates capital.

The architecture of the building is the truly breathtaking and by far Jean Nouvel’s Masterpiece.

The project cost over £1 billion with £399 million just for the use of the  French original name “Louvre” for 30 year loan.

Inside it is 6,400 square metres of gallery space – comprising 23 galleries for the museum’s permanent collection, a temporary exhibition space and the Children’s Museum.

The extensive art collection offers more than 620 pieces and artifacts on display with 300 artworks on loan from 13 leading French museums like the Pompidou, the Musée d’Orsay, and Versailles.

At first I was very surprised of the layout choice curated for the new Louvre. A chronology of 12 “chapters” of human civilisation, in which art and artifacts from different cultures are displayed in the same galleries, “in explorations of the general spirit of their times”.

The original association of artworks offers a new vision of the past through the middle east eye, which open up new conversations.

But I believe that the architecture of the building is stealing the show. The museum is designed as a seemingly floating dome structure. “I wanted to create a neighborhood of art, rather than a building,” says Jean Nouvel, the French architect of the new Louvre.

Another core part of the Nouvel’s vision was a “rain of light” from the sun that would filter through the dome onto the plazas and galleries below. Using the light as a material for the complete design.

Its web-patterned dome allowing the sun to filter through, made of 8,000 overlapping metal stars in a geometric pattern. The overall effect is meant to represent “rays of sunlight passing through date palm fronds in an oasis.