A Guide to Abu Dhabi's World-class Museums and Galleries

"Beneath a 600-foot-wide metal dome whose surface is an intricate, 7,850-piece jigsaw of perforated aluminum and stainless-steel panels, rays of light pierced through the gaps and fell like golden rain on the museum’s exterior walls as I stood in the shade. Inside, 23 galleries are arranged as narrow alleyways and plazas to evoke the feel of a shady medina, and the exhibits are organized not by region or era but by 12 thematic “chapters” — from the birth of civilization and motherhood to portrayals of power and representations of the divine — so that, for example, a 13th-century funerary stele and a 15th-century Yemenite Torah sit alongside works from other faiths and eras to encourage dialogue. I loved the juxtapositions — 16th-century paintings of scholars by Jacob de Backer beside a 21st-century bronze sculpture of Arabic words by Ghada Amer, a 14th-century French Mary-and-Jesus sculpture exhibited beside similar expressions of motherhood from Egypt and Congo — and the floors of patchwork dark Omani stone and camel leather. The building itself feels like a flying saucer that has crash-landed on the beach and rivals the Sydney Opera House in audacity; inside I even ordered a glass of wine in the café and another at the museum’s outpost of Fouquet’s, where the steak tartare is mixed tableside, à la Parisienne." - John Arlidge