SAADIYAT ISLAND, ABU DHABI,U.A.E.
Saadiyat Island, a virgin piece of land just off the shore of Abu Dhabi, is soon to become a major cultural destination. Four world class architects have been commissioned to design iconic museums and a performing arts centre. Tadao Ando is designing the Maritime Museum, Frank Gehry the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, Zaha Hadid the performing arts centre and Jean Nouvel the Classical Museum-the Louvre Abu Dhabi.
Ando’s Maritime Museum design is based on the concept of dhows and Abu Dhabi’s natural surroundings, landscape and maritime traditions. Sea and land merge to form the various usable spaces.
Gehry’s design of the Guggenheim Museum breaks all boundaries of innovation and is going to be the tallest Guggenheim yet. Inspired by the site and the opportunity to design a space that will be visited by people worldwide, Gehry has designed a structure in which four stories of central galleries are laid around a courtyard with two more rings of galleries spanning out from the core. The third ring consists of raw industry-like galleries where contemporary art will be created on site on never seen before scales.
In Hadid’s performing arts centre,a 62 m.high building containing five theatres is proposed. According to Hadid, the architecture increases in complexity as we move from the start of the island to the end. The concert hall will have dramatic views of the sea and the city skyline and the remaining theatres each overlook the sea to help users connect with their surroundings.
Nouvel owes his inspiration to the natural surroundings. The clash of the aridity of land and fluidity of water inspired him to design a very simple archaeological field revived as a small city, a cluster of nearly one row buildings along a leisurely promenade. These are covered by a unique translucent dome, a form common to all civilisations,which lets in light and completely changes the ambience in the museum area. These are scheduled to open under a phased programme in 2012.
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