Cultural District of Saadiyat Island by Celebrity Architects

Zaha Hadid: Performing Arts Centre

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.

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.

Guggenheim Abu Dhabi

The landscape, the opportunity, the requirement to build something that people all over the world would come to, and the possible resources 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.

Jean Nouvel: Classical Museum

Tadao Ando: Maritime Museum

The whole 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.

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