Jean Nouvel's long-awaited Louvre Abu Dhabi to open 11 November

The long-awaited Louvre Abu Dhabi will open its doors to the public on 11 November 2017 with an opening celebration including symposiums, performances, concerts, dance and visual arts. The centre piece of the museum, designed by Pritzker prize-winning French architect Jean Nouve, is a 180-metre silver dome. The “museum city” (arab Medina) is comprised of almost 8,000 unique metal stars which filter sunlight to create a moving “rain of light” beneath the dome, reminiscent of the overlapping palm trees of the surrounding environment.

Located in Abu Dhabi (the capital of the United Arab Emirates), the museum will be the first of its kind in the Arab world as a “universal museum focusing on shared human stories across civilisations and cultures.” On display will be the museum’s collection of artworks, artefacts and loans from many of France’s top museums, ranging from prehistorical objects to commissioned contemporary artworks. Marking a departure from more traditional museography, which often separates collections based on origin, the collection will instead highlight “universal themes from the entire history of human existence.”