Guggenheim museum | Abu Dhabi

The Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, designed by internationally renowned American architect Frank Gehry, is an experiment in inventive 21st-century museum design. The building defines a new approach to the museum visitor experience and presents an innovative vision for viewing contemporary art in the context of a desert landscape.

Currently under development, the new 450,000-square-foot museum is situated on a peninsula at the northwestern tip of Saadiyat Island adjacent to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. The building site also serves as a manmade breakwater configured to protect the island’s pristine north beach zone.

The Gehry concept for the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi features permanent collection and special exhibitions galleries; a center for art and technology; a center for contemporary Arab, Islamic, and Middle Eastern culture; an education facility; a research center; and a state-of-the-art conservation laboratory. This museum will be the Guggenheim Foundation’s largest facility.

“Approaching the design of the museum for Abu Dhabi made it possible to consider options for design of a building that would not be possible in the United States or in Europe. It was clear from the beginning that this had to be a new invention. The landscape, the opportunity, the requirement, to build something that people all over the world would come to and the possible resource 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.”
—Frank Gehry