ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates (AP) – The Mideast outpost of France’s iconic Louvre Museum will open in Abu Dhabi on Nov. 11, officials announced Wednesday, ending a decade-long wait for a gallery whose construction was beset by economic turmoil and criticism over laborers’ working conditions.
The announcement breaths new live into Abu Dhabi’s Saadiyat Island, a salty flood plain of the Persian Gulf originally envisioned as a cultural touchstone for an Emirati capital flush with oil money in the mid-2000s.
The domed ceiling of the Louvre Abu Dhabi, designed by French architect Jean Nouvel, offers eight layers of Arab-style geometric shapes, allowing beams of star-like light to pour in.
The story of the Louvre’s construction tracks with the recent history of the United Arab Emirates, a seven-sheikhdom federation whose commercial capital of Dubai was in the grips of feverish development in 2007, when officials announced the Louvre deal. As Dubai built the world’s tallest building, Abu Dhabi sought a culture edge in a battle of siblings, buying its way into both pop-culture movies and high-culture art.
Abu Dhabi’s oil-rich rulers agreed to pay France $525 million for the use of the “Louvre” name alone, plus another $750 million to hire French managers to oversee 300 loaned works of art. A center at Paris’ Louvre now bears the name of the late UAE President Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nayhan, which was also part of the deal.