Emirati Architecture

For the Dubai 2020 Expo, the United Arab Emirates and Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President and Ruler of Dubai, selected the theme Connecting Minds, Creating the Future. Organized around ideas of Sustainability, Mobility and Opportunity, the next world Expo will be the first to be held in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia region. Organised every five years, the world expo lasts six months and is created as a global destination for millions of people to share ideas, showcase innovation, encourage collaboration and celebrate human ingenuity.

The Sharjah Architecture Triennial will open in November 2019 as "the first major platform for dialogue on architecture and urbanism in the Middle East, North Africa, East Africa and South Asia." Curator Adrian Lahoud has announced the theme of the Triennial as the Rights of Future Generations, aiming to fundamentally challenge traditional ideas about architecture and introduce new ways of thinking that veer from current Western-centric discourse.

After finishing a building, the client is faced with an important question: How do they celebrate the new architecture? This moment offers an essential opportunity to inform the public about the existence and mission of the building. Therefore, the designs of opening ceremonies are often loaded with symbolic imagery to construct a new identity. Fireworks and light shows are an especially common part of the powerful repertoire used to magnify the aura of architecture. This luminous storytelling can underline the client’s uniqueness and superiority on both a local level and an international stage. I spoke with two leading designers to get their insights on how opening ceremonies have changed in recent years: Christophe Berthonneau, Creative Director at Groupe F, who introduced the Louvre Abu Dhabi, and Fred Thompson, Creative Director at Laservision Mega Media, who worked on the opening of the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore.

In this video, architecture vloggers #donotsettle take us inside Ateliers Jean Nouvel's "museum city" in the sea: the Louvre Abu Dhabi. Filmed one month after the museum’s opening in November, Kris Provoost winds his way through the galleries to the much-talked-about mega-dome—with a diagrammatic key plan in the bottom corner of the video helping us to follow his path.

With its massive, intricate roof and man-made pools and canals, Ateliers Jean Nouvel's astonishingly complex Louvre Abu Dhabi was a project 10-years in the making before finally debuting to the public earlier this month. But even if the project missed it's original completion date, it certainly wasn't for lack of trying – and that's proven in this new video timelapse from EarthCam.

The much-anticipated Louvre Abu Dhabi, designed by Jean Nouvel, opens this week in the United Arab Emirates. The project has enormous significance as a transnational partnership between the French and Emirati governments, and is set to become a center for art and learning in the Gulf region. Located on Saadiyat Island and surrounded by the sea, the museum comprises twenty three permanent galleries and exhibition spaces, a Children's Museum, an auditorium, and a research center – all connected together by waterfront promenades and a vast, shimmering dome.

Following ten years of multinational collaboration between France and the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, Jean Nouvel's Louvre Abu Dhabi opens this week to the public. Located on Saadiyat Island and surrounded by the sea, twenty three permanent galleries and exhibition spaces, a Children's Museum, an auditorium, and a research center are connected by waterfront promenades which weave beneath the building's iconic dome.

The government of the United Arab Emirates has announced the launch of the Mars Science City project, a $140 Million USD (AED 500 million) research city that will serve as a “viable and realistic model” for the simulation of human occupation of the martian landscape. Designed by a team of Emirati scientists, engineers and designers from the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre in partnership with Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), the 1.9 million-square-foot domed structure will become the largest space simulation city ever constructed.

The long-awaited Louvre Abu Dhabi, designed by Ateliers Jean Nouvel, is getting ready for a grand opening, with images showing the metal-domed building in the final stages of construction. Officially started in 2009, work on the museum is nearly complete, with a rumored opening date scheduled for this November.

Commissioned for a large-scale event in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, Edoardo Tresoldi in collaboration with Design Lab Experience have constructed a vast indoor "piazza" of architectural fragments. Accommodating a 7000sqm event space, each "Classical" element is built entirely from wire mesh and comprises domes, arches, colonnades, columns, and imitations of sacred spaces (namely Italian basilicas). Together they create a translucent and ephemeral sequence of indoor rooms – all layered by a strikingly contemporary aesthetic.