Named after wealthy American industrialist and art collector Solomon R. Guggenheim, the Guggenheim Museum in New York City opened in 1959, more than 15 years after renowned architect Frank Lloyd Wright was commissioned to design a permanent space to house Guggenheim’s vast collection. With a unique spiral design and open rotunda, one critic professed it was “the most beautiful building in America” upon its opening.
The Guggenheim Foundation, which manages the museum, continued to acquire valuable pieces of art throughout the following decades and, in the early 1990s, explored the possibility of creating additional Guggenheim Museums in different countries. It signed an agreement to build a museum in Bilbao, Spain in 1991, and the museum opened six years later. The foundation has also launched similar initiatives in Berlin, Germany, and Las Vegas, Nevada, while the Peggy Guggenheim Collection is housed in Venice, Italy.
In 2007, the foundation announced plans to build a new, world-class museum in Abu Dhabi. The project has been hampered by multiple delays and is now expected to open in 2025.
Delayed Several Times
The scheduled opening of the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi is almost two decades after plans were first announced and 14 years after construction started. The museum’s director, Richard Armstrong, confirmed the new opening date at a press briefing in Basel, Switzerland, in September 2021.
When the project was first announced, it was expected to be complete and open to the public by 2012, but that was eventually pushed back to 2017. Armstrong, in April 2019, pushed back the planned opening date back to 2022 or 2023, but the COVID-19 pandemic shut down construction and again delayed the museum’s opening.
Being Constructed on Saadiyat Island
Once complete, the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi will be the largest of the four museums operated by the Guggenheim Foundation at 42,000 square meters. The facility, however, will be owned by Abu Dhabi’s Tourism Development & Investment Company. The museum will feature a cluster of galleries of various sizes and shapes, as well as a library, conservation laboratory, archives, children’s education facility, and center for art and technology.
Guggenheim Abu Dhabi is being constructed on Saadiyat Island, which the emirate is hoping to transform into a major cultural tourism destination. The island also features Jean Nouvel’s Louvre Abu Dhabi, the first Musée du Louvre outpost built beyond the borders of France. Construction is also ongoing for the Zayed National Museum as well as The Abrahamic Family House, a maritime museum, and performing arts center.
Designed by Frank Gehry
A Canadian-American architect and designer, Frank Gehry is one of the best in the world at his craft. He designed the Guggenheim Bilbao and is the lead designer for the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi. He has more than 50 years of design experience and is a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Some of his other iconic designs include the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, California; the Neuer Zollhof in Dusseldorf, Germany; the Olympic Fish Pavilion in Barcelona, Spain; and the Weisman Art Museum in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Project Director Stephanie Rosenthal
Although the opening of the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi is still at least three years away, the institution announced Stephanie Rosenthal as its project director in May 2022. The recipient of a doctorate in art history from the University of Cologne, Rosenthal has written extensively on performance in contemporary art and previously worked as the director of the Gropius Bau in Berlin. She has prior experience as chief curator at Hayward Gallery in London, United Kingdom, and curator at the Haus der Kunst in Munich, Germany.
Rosenthal will work alongside acting project director, Maisa Al Qassimi, who has been involved with the project via the Department of Culture and Tourism for several years.
Building Its Collection
Although the construction of the museum has experienced several delays, Guggenheim Abu Dhabi has been incredibly active in building its art collection and has even staged multiple exhibits. It previewed some of its collection at the exhibits “Seeing Through Light: Selections From the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi Collection” (2014) and “The Creative Act: Performance, Process, Presence” (2017), which featured works by Douglas Wheeler, Robert Irwin, and Anish Kapoor.
The institution acquired its first piece of art more than a decade ago and has since built a collection that includes in excess of 600 works by nearly 300 artists from 65 countries. It has conducted extensive research and hosted seminars and workshops with academics from all over the globe to expand upon its collection. However, there will also be an emphasis on regional artists.
“We are going to continue with programming, research, collection [building] and our major focus will be commissions for the building and that takes a lot of time,” Al Qassimi said in an interview with The National in September 2021. “It’s really an exciting time that we’re in that phase. We’re in the phase of commissioning artists and definitely focusing on regional artists.”