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Biggest Guggenheim museum to be built in Abu Dhabi

ABU DHABI - The New York-based Guggenheim Foundation signed a memorandum of understanding on Saturday to build its largest art museum on an island in the United Arab Emirates, vowing that exhibits will respect Muslim traditions.

Guggenheim Abu Dhabi (GAD) will rise on a Gulf island off the UAE capital and will be designed by renowned US architect Frank Gehry who designed the Guggenheim museum in the Spanish city of Bilbao, the foundation’s director Thomas Krens told reporters at the signing ceremony.

With an area of 30,000 square meters (322,800 square feet), the new museum of modern art on Saadiyat island will be larger than the existing Guggenheims in New York, Berlin, Bilbao, Las Vegas and the Italian city of Venice, Krens added.

Construction is expected to last five years. The eventual price tag will depend on Gehry’s design.

“We believe that the Middle East is one of the world’s most important emerging regions in terms of contemporary culture,” Krens said before inking the memorandum of understanding with the head of the Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority, Sheikh Sultan bin Tahnoun Al Nahayan.

Shaikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahayan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, one of seven emirates that make up the UAE, attended the signing ceremony.

The museum will be built in the cultural district of Saadiyat island -- which translates from Arabic as island of happiness.

The district will also be home to a national museum, a classical art museum and a performing arts center, part of a three-phase project to turn the 27-square-kilometer island from an agricultural research site into a cultural hub by 2018.

The infrastructure for the project, which will also feature the development of residential zones, will cost more than a billion dollars.

The museum will acquire its own major collection of contemporary art and will also exhibit masterpieces from the Guggenheim Foundation’s global collections.

All works to go on display at the museum will “respect Abu Dhabi’s culture and national and Islamic heritage,” the foundation said in a statement.

“Our objective is not to be confrontational, but to be engaged in a cultural exchange,” said Krens when asked how the boldness of contemporary art can be reconciled with conservative Muslim values.

“There are things that we don’t do in New York because we feel that it is not appropriate to do them in this city,” he said.

A Guggenheim Foundation official, requesting anonymity, told AFP the museum would not display any nude figures or works with religious themes.

Abu Dhabi’s Tourism Development and Investment Company (TDIC) will own the museum, while the Guggenheim Foundation will establish and manage its program.

Gehry, 77, said it was “still too early” to speak of the materials, which will be used in building the museum to make it fit the climate of the desert region.

“I know it’s hot. Being situated on the seafront means we might have sandstorms, which means no glass,” he told AFP.

“It is important for a building to be a good neighbor and not just a foreign comer from outer space,” Gehry said, noting that ceramics would be “interesting to use” in possible facades.

“Titanium was chosen in Bilbao on a cloudy day. It is not the case here. Here there is a lot of light, but that does not mean I will rule out titanium,” the American architect added.