Perhaps the building of the Louvre Abu Dhabi is even more interesting than the exposition inside. The building is made in the form of a dome with a diameter of 180 meters. This is not even one building, but a complex of 55 separate buildings, which are covered with a dome.

This dome is made of 8 layers of structures with honeycombs of different sizes and at different angles. Four outer layers are made of steel, four inner layers are made of aluminum. The distance between layers is 5 meters. The dome rests on 4 pillars that are hidden in the buildings, so it seems that the dome is floating.

The geometry of the dome is designed so that light penetrates through all 8 layers in 7850 places. These places are called “stars”. During the day, the effect of “rain of light” is formed inside. At night, the light from the inside comes out, and the “stars” can be seen from the outside of the building.

The dome impresses not only as a masterpiece of architectural thought, but also with its size. Diameter – 180 meters, height at the central point – 29 meters from the first floor to the ceiling. The mass of the structure is 7500 tons, which is 200 tons more than that of the Eiffel Tower. It took 10 years for all stages of construction (from 2007 to 2017).

You need to come to the Louvre Abu Dhabi just to look at this masterpiece.

Exposition

She is not big. There are about 200 works of art that were purchased for the museum by the government of Abu Dhabi and about 300 more were taken on bail from the Louvre in Paris. In addition, works by local authors are exhibited.

The Louvre Abu Dhabi Museum is small, the total exhibition area is only 8,000 sq.m. For comparison, the exposition area of ​​the Tretyakov Gallery is 80,000 sq.m., the Hermitage – 67,000 sq.m.

In 2017, the Louvre Abu Dhabi bought Leonardo da Vinci’s The Savior of the World for a record $450.3 million. But no one has seen the painting since the auction.

But here is exhibited another painting by Leonardo “Beautiful Ferroniera”. See photo next, click on photo to enlarge.

Also exhibited are several works by Henri Matisse, Vincent van Gogh’s Self-Portrait, Jacques-Louis David’s Bonaparte at the Saint-Bernard Pass, Claude Monet’s Gare Saint-Lazare, and Pablo Picasso’s Portrait of a Woman.

As in the Louvre in Paris, there are many works of ancient art. However, not a single era of the development of art, not a single region, not a single style is shown in a comprehensive manner.

The exposition is based on the principle “About everything, but about nothing”. Why did it happen?

Let’s answer in simple words. Sheikhs of the United Arab Emirates are very smart and prudent people. They effectively invest oil money, and the art world is one of the important areas of their financial investments. And the Louvre Abu Dhabi is a repository of their investments, on which you can also earn some money by letting visitors come here.

Naturally, with this approach, the exposition turned out to be very chaotic. No one pursued the goal of showing visitors any complex epoch in the history of art.

It is quite possible that in the future the sheikhs will buy even more paintings and statues, and then the exposition will acquire the integrity of its parts. There is still a lot of space for these future acquisitions under the dome. Of the 23 galleries, only 13 are currently occupied.

But so far the exposition can be called “moderately interesting”. You can and should look, but there are few reasons for admiration.

How much did the Louvre Abu Dhabi cost

The building cost an estimated $715 million.

For the right to call the museum “Louvre” paid 400 million euros.

Another $750 million was paid as a deposit for works from the Louvre in Paris.

How much did you spend on buying works for the museum? This is a big secret. After all, only part of the works was bought at open auctions, the other part was bought by private transactions. And even at auctions, sheikhs often bought works on behalf of others. One can only guess about the exact figure, most often the figure is 1 billion dollars.

Alexander Stephenson

Tourism Specialist in the UAE. Higher professional education. Paperwork and booking tours in the UAE. Professional management of clients at all stages of the journey – from the application to the return.

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