fine lines

Abu Dhabi is spending billions to become the world’s newest arts capital—and is shaking up Emirati social norms along the way. John Arlidge

ON THE SUNBAKED shores of the Arabian Gulf, a good spot to catch a breeze is under the 600-foot-wide metal dome that shades the Louvre Abu Dhabi, designed by French architect Jean Nouvel. The surface of this giant, parasol shaped roof is an intricate, 7,850-piece jigsaw of perforated aluminum and stainless-steel panels. Rays of light pierce through the gaps, falling like golden rain on the museum’s exterior walls. Inside, the 23 galleries are divided by narrow alleyways and plazas to evoke the look and feel of a shady medina.

Squinting out from underneath this structure on a recent visit, I spied the concrete columns of another vast new museum: the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, designed by Frank Gehry. Scheduled to open in two years’ time, this building sits less than a mile away on Saadiyat Island, a sandy triangle just off the coast. It will house more than 600 works of modern and contemporary art by established names, such as Louise Bourgeois, as well as new Emirati artists and emerging talents from across Asia and Africa. Also rising from Saadiyat’s dusty desert scrub are a multi-faith cultural center called the Abrahamic Family House, designed by David Adjaye, the British architect behind the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History Culture in Washington, D.C.; the Zayed National Museum, by London architects Foster Partners; and two more cultural institutions to be unveiled next year.