With
an original opening date of 2012, later moved up to 2015 (and missed), we are
now being told that as August 2016, the Louvre Abu Dhabi museum is now 95%
complete. Located on the Saadiyat Island
in Abu Dhabi, UAE it has been announced that the museum will be finished in
late December or early 2017 with an opening date sometime in 2017.
In
terms of ambitious architectural design there is good reason why the Louvre Abu
Dhabi has taken so long to complete. Designed
by the French architect Jean Nouvel, recipient of the highest architectural
honor, the Pritzker Prize, the 260,000 sq. ft. structure is expected to have a
final cost between €83 million and €108 million (U.S. $120 million).
To
complete Nouvel’s “Rain of Light” vision, the dome’s approximately 1,855-foot circumference
is constructed as a giant jigsaw puzzle that took over 30 million man hours and
424 days to complete. And that does not
count the underside of the dome’s cladding.
One of the 7,850 stars that form the eight layers of the Rain of Light installation
is over 160 square feet and weighs almost 915 pounds.
The
walls of the structure required 4,680 panels of ultra-high performance, fiber-reinforced
concrete that used a matrix of glass fibers instead of steel to increase its compressive
and tensile strength. Since the museum
will be constantly exposed to sea water as it sits right on the edge of the
Arabian Gulf, this type of concrete offered minimal shrinkage and
impermeability. Another feature includes
the roof that “sits on top of four towers that have been carefully concealed
inside the museum buildings, creating the illusion that the whole 7,000-tonne
structure is hovering in mid-air.”
The
museum, which is accessed by boat, will eventually be joined by two more
museums, the Zayed National Museum and the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, as part of the
new Saadiyat Island Cultural District. Along
with the Louvre’s 23 permanent galleries, it also has space for temporary
exhibits as well as a research center. In
addition to the cost of the museum, the country of Abu Dhabi also paid $525
million to be a part of the Louvre name along with an additional $747 million
to receive art loans, special exhibitions and management advice.
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Sources: archdaily.com/793182/in-progress-louvre-abu-dhabi-jean-nouvel
thenational.ae/uae/tourism/louvre-abu-dhabi
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