Dezeen Magazine

More images of Nouvel’s Abu Dhabi museum

Here are all four images of Jean Nouvel's design for the Classical Museum on Saadiyat Island (see preceding stories).

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The client, UAE’s Tourism Development & Investment Company, sent us the following information on Nouvel’s project:

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Nouvel’s design concept for the Classical Museum owes much to Saadiyat’s natural surroundings: “The island offers a harsh landscape, tempered by its meeting with the channel, a striking image of the aridity of the earth versus the fluidity of the waters," said Nouvel.

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“These fired the imagination towards unknown cities buried deep into the sands or sunk under water. These dreamy thoughts have merged into a simple plan of an archaeological field revived as a small city, a cluster of nearly one-row buildings along a leisurely promenade.

“This micro-city requires a micro-climate that would give the visitor a feeling of entering a different world. The building is covered with a large dome, a form common to all civilisations. This one is made of a web of different patterns interlaced into a translucent ceiling which lets a diffuse, magical light come through in the best tradition of great Arabian architecture.

"Water is given a crucial role, both in reflecting every part of the building and acting as a psyche, and in creating, with a little help from the wind, a comfortable micro-climate."