Louvre Abu Dhabi is the first museum of its kind in the Arab world: Endowed with an innovative scientific and cultural project combining the expertise of 13 French museums and institutions steered by the Agence France-Muséums, the Louvre Abu Dhabi will indeed offer visitors a unique experience: a brand-new journey through major works of art from different civilisations, mirrored to reveal our common humanity. e Louvre Abu Dhabi therefore carries a message of tolerance and peace and stresses the unwavering commitment of Abu Dhabi and France to promote culture and education as a shield against extremism.

Located in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Pritzker Prize winning French architect Jean Nouvel has designed a museum city (Arab medina) under a vast silvery dome. Visitors can walk through the promenades overlooking the sea beneath the museum’s 180-metre dome, comprised of almost 8,000 unique metal stars set in a complex geometric pa ern. When sunlight filters through, it creates a moving ‘rain of light’ beneath the dome, reminiscent of the overlapping palm trees in the UAE’s oases.

On display will be the museum’s important collection of artworks, artefacts and loans from France’s top museums. These span the entirety of human existence: from prehistorical objects to commissioned contemporary artworks, highlighting universal themes and ideas and marking a departure from traditional museography that often separates according to origin. In addition to the galleries, the museum will include exhibitions and a Children’s Museum. Louvre Abu Dhabi’s story will begin in the ‘Great Vestibule’, where visitors are introduced to important themes such as maternity and funerary rituals. e dialogue between works from different geographical territories, some- times far apart, highlights similarities between the canons despite each having its own mode of expression. The galleries will be both chronological and thematic, and subdivided into 12 chapters. Displays include works from the earliest empires, including the first figurative representations, such as the Bactrian Princess created in Central Asia at the end of the 3rd Millennium BCE, funerary practices of ancient Egypt illustrated by a set sarcophagi of Princess Henuttawy, and the creation of new economies with a Decadrachm coin of Syracuse signed by the artist Euainetos.

A gallery dedicated to universal religions will feature sacred texts: a Leaf from the ‘Blue Quran’, a Gothic Bible, a Pentateuch and texts from Buddhism and Taoism. e artistic ex- changes on the trading routes during the Medieval and Modern periods are brought to the fore through a important number of ceramic works. Between Asia and the Mediterranean and then between Europe and America, guests will appreciate how the world’s horizon gradually expanded. A set of screens from the Japanese Namban demonstrate the dialogue be- tween the Far East and Europe.

For more information click: www.louvreabudhabi.ae