Oasis in the Desert [Art News]

Governments in the United Arab Emirates are spending billions of dollars in an ambitious, unprecedented effort to create cultural districts with world-class museums—along with a support system of creators, dealers, and collectors. But many Western art professionals wonder if this massive undertaking, launched at a dizzying scale and pace, can be successful by Sharon Waxman
The warm, emerald shallows of the Persian Gulf gently wash the shores of Saadiyat Island, and dolphins now play on the spot where the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi is about to rise in a helter-skelter cubist silhouette against the sun-blazed sky. Currently a 27-mile-square expanse of flat, white sand off the coast of Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, Saadiyat Island is poised to dramatically change the landscape of art, architecture, and museums. With four world-class museums on the drawing board and another three in the planning, the island’s $27 billion–plus cultural district is the linchpin of what may well be the most ambitious cultural agenda ever to take shape in such a limited time and space.

The Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, designed by Frank Gehry, and the Louvre Abu Dhabi, designed by Jean Nouvel—the latter expected to cost upwards of $1.3 billion—are among the first major museums that will form a new global cultural hub in the tiny countries of the Gulf. The Gehry and Nouvel museums will be joined on the coastline by a performing arts center designed by Zaha Hadid, a maritime museum by Tadao Ando, and a national museum by Norman Foster, with the first phase of the cultural district to be completed as soon as 2012.

But Abu Dhabi, the largest of the seven emirates in the UAE, is not alone in what amounts to a cultural arms race in a region rich with petro-cash, and eager to spend it on symbols of good taste and refinement. Dubai, whose ambitions and pace of development outstrip even those of Abu Dhabi, has announced plans to build several major museums, including one devoted to modern Middle Eastern art, designed by Amsterdam architect Ben van Berkel; another dedicated to the prophet Muhammad; and a universal museum, curated by three German institutions, for which the content has not yet been defined. Dubai cultural officials say the plan is to build at least eight major museums in the coming decade. And Qatar, a smaller but even richer country down the Persian Gulf from Dubai, intends to build 10 to 12 major museums in the next decade. The first major museum in that country of 800,000 opened in November in Doha. Designed by I. M. Pei, it is a soaring space devoted to Islamic art, floating in the waters of the Gulf.

“There is an explosive quality to the growth of cultural life in this region,” said Roger Mandle, executive director of the Qatar Museums Authority and a former president of the Rhode Island School of Design. “It’s like the birth of a civilization—Russia after glasnost, China after it opened up. There is a desire to enjoy the same opportunities as the rest of the world in terms of educational and cultural pursuits.”