Here are some key figures:
- The museum is located on a 97,000-square-meter plot of land on Saadiyat Island, a low-lying island 500 metres off Abu Dhabi’s shore that is home to a number of tourism and development projects.
- To build the museum’s foundations, engineers had to move 503,000 cubic metres of sand.
- The Louvre Abu Dhabi is one of 55 white structures inspired by traditional Arab medinas that make up a huge “museum city.” It also includes the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, which is still being built.
- There will be 23 permanent galleries at the museum.
- The entire region is encircled by a 36-meter-high silvery dome that weighs 7,500 tonnes, almost as much as the Eiffel Tower.
- Because the dome’s four pillars are buried within the museum, it appears to float.
- The dome is made up of eight superimposed layers: four stainless steel exterior layers and four interior levels separated by a five-metre-high steel structure.
- A “shower of light” is created by layering 7,850 patterned perforations: each ray of the sun must pass through all eight levels to reach the ground, creating an elaborate and ever-shifting pattern.
- A total of 8,600 square metres of indoor show space will be available.
- The museum’s galleries will span 6,400 square metres and will include 600 works of art, 300 of which will be leased from 13 French museums for the first year.
- The temporary exhibition space will be 2,000 square metres, and the children’s museum will have a specific area of 200 square metres.
- Art and artefacts from the earliest Mesopotamian civilisations to the current day will be displayed in the permanent galleries.
- The Louvre Abu Dhabi was founded in 2007 as a result of an Emirati request and is governed by a Paris-Abu Dhabi intergovernmental agreement.
- The Louvre Abu Dhabi is reported to have cost over a billion euros to build, with the Louvre brand alone costing over 400 million euros.
- The museum’s building is expected to cost over 600 million euros, however expenses have grown due to finance and construction delays.
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