An art historian museologist as visitor at

Louvre Abu Dhabi | the building

23 February 2020

I visited The Louvre Abu Dhabi museum on 23 February 2020. It was a great pleasure to enter into this magnificent building. Check out my post about this breathtaking architecture. You can see some pictures of mine. Enjoy 🙂

The product of architect Jean Nouvel’s unique vision, Louvre Abu Dhabi was constructed as the heart of a new urban quarter for the United Arab Emirates’ capital city. A symphony in concrete, water and the subtle play of reflected light, its design was inspired by the region’s rich architectural traditions and the museum’s unique location at the point where the Arabian sky meets the sands of Saadiyat Island and the waters of the Arabian Gulf. Now considered as one of the modern urban wonders of the world, Louvre Abu Dhabi is not only the Arab world’s first universal museum but a powerful symbol of the United Arab Emirates’ ambition and achievement.

Text from website of Louvre Abu Dhabi

A MUSEUM-CITY IN THE SEA

“A welcoming world serenely combining light and shadow, reflection and calm. It aims to belong to a country, to its history, to its geography – without being a simple interpretation. And emphasise a fascination with unusual discoveries.”

Louvre Abu Dhabi architect Jean Nouvel

Reflection of the roof on the water

Inside – from the exhibition space

Water and the roof

Under the roof

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Jenny Holzer| For the Louvre Abu Dhabi 2017

Jenny Holzer (American, born 1950) | For the Louvre Abu Dhabi 2017

Limestone relief of three pages printed and annotated in French, from the “Bordeaux Copy” of Essais by Michel de Montaigne, exploring themes of human nature and writing: “On Democritus and Heraclitus” (I:50) “An the Art of Conversation” (III:8) and “An the Vanity” (III:9), 1588

Holzer’s choice of texts, one in Sumerian-Akkadian, one in Arabic and one in French, reflect Louvre Abu Dhabi’s multi-cultural origins and its universal approach to the history of culture and creativity. They include excerpts from a Mesopotamian Creation Myth tablet that was excavated from the ancient city of Assur in present-day Iraq and the 1588 annotated edition of Michel de Montaigne’s Essais as well as a passage from Ibn Khaldun’s 14th-century Muqaddimah, which is drawn from the Atif Efendi Library collection in Istanbul.

Widely regarded as the most important piece of Islamic history of the premodern world, the Muqaddimah (Introduction), is a monumental work that many scholars consider as a foundation for modern fields of enquiry, such as economics, sociology, ethnography and the philosophy of history.

Louvre Abu Dhabi builds upon Holzer’s four decade-long concern with the delivery of words and presentation of ideas in public spaces. Her large-scale, text-based installations have included advertising billboards, projections on buildings and other architectural structures, and illuminated electronic displays.

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On the top

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Sunet at Louvre Abu Dhabi

Harmony of nature and architecture

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