After ten years of waiting, the big day is nearly here.
The opening of Louvre is going to be a grand affair, with four days of celebrations. The headline artists include Ibrahim Maalouf, Fatoumata Diawara, Matthieu Chedid and Toto la Momposina. Tickets for the opening show by Chedid on November 11 and Momposina on November 13 are already sold out, according to ticketing staff.
Emmanuel Macron, President of France, and a host of VIPs will be present for the museum’s official inauguration on November 8.
The Louvre Abu Dhabi showcases 600 priceless pieces of art housed in its 23 galleries and 12 chapters. The art pieces are loaned from the top 13 French museums. Half of the collection will be from the museum’s permanent collection.
The museum is also displaying more than 250 works of art from the Emirati collection, including Edouard Manet’s “The Gypsy” and works by Dutch abstract artist Piet Mondrian and Turkey’s Osman Hamdi Bey.
The museum design by France’s Pritzker Prize-winning architect Jean Nouvel conjures up the image of an Arab medina. A silver-toned dome with perforated arabesque patterns appears to float over the white museum galleries, creating what Nouvel describes as a “rain of light”.
To reach the ground, each ray of light must cross eight layers of perforations, creating a constantly shifting pattern that mimics the shadows cast by palm trees or the roof of a traditional Arab market.
Louvre Abu Dhabi Main Attractions
> 600 priceless pieces of art housed in 23 galleries and 12 chapters
> Among the exhibits are a sixth-century copy of the Holy Quran, a Gothic Bible and a Yemeni Torah facing each other, open at verses carrying the same message
> Two-thirds of the museum is covered by a dome, 180 metres in diameter
> The dome is pierced with 7,850 star-like openings formed by the layering of the building’s structure
> The dome is intended to resemble silver lace
> Tickets are priced at Dh60
> Visitors aged between 13 and 22 years will pay Dh30
> Children below 13 enter free
> Valet parking available
Museum hours:
>Saturdays to Wednesdays: 10am to 8pm
>Thursdays to Fridays: 10am to 10pm
>Mondays: Closed
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