Cultural mecca in Saadiyat?

Saadiyat, an island just off the coast of Abu Dhabi, is undergoing a US$27 billion investment to turn the city into a cultural mecca, but will this be achieved?

Until now, Saadiyat, which means 'island of happiness', has been a barren stretch of land, surrounded by turquoise water, that has long-enticed weekend campers, boat parties, and water-skiers, but now, its location next to the world's richest city, Abu Dhabi, means it's getting a makeover in a bid to recast Abu Dhabi as a cultural mecca.

By 2013, the capital of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will boast an offshoot of the Louvre, a new Guggenheim museum, a National Museum inspired by the British Museum, a performing arts centre designed by the British-Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid, several art schools, and various pavilions and other cultural franchises that will be able to host temporary exhibitions from around the world. The 10-lane bridge, which will bring millions of visitors to the island, is expected to be operational next month. With more than 40 million people traveling through the UAE each year, analysts expect that there is a real market to be seized.

"The region has been a crossroads for centuries," says Rita Aoun, director of culture at Tourist Development and Investment Company (TDIC), the corporation behind the frenzy of development on Saadiyat. "Abu Dhabi wants to become a modern bridge between East and West."

To build the museums, Abu Dhabi's leaders have recruited the most celebrated architects in the world. The Guggenheim is being designed by Frank Gehr and his ambitious 450,000sq ft structure, which is far larger than his existing museum in Bilbao, is based around a haphazard arrangement of blocks perched one above the other and wrapped around a courtyard flanking the cavernous gallery spaces.

Pritzker prize-winner Jean Nouvel is the architect behind the new outpost of the Louvre; his pavilions, plazas and canals are said to conjure an image of a floating city, topped by a vast Islamic dome that should diffuse the intense desert light. The National Museum, meanwhile, has been entrusted to the British architect Norman Foster.

The offshoot to the Louvre will come at a price though. Abu Dhabi will pay the Louvre US$1.3billion for the use of the French museum's name. This sum will also secure loans of impressive artworks, as well as consultation and management advice, over 30 years (although, contractually, the loans from the Louvre Paris will cease after 10 years, once the Louvre Abu Dhabi has built up its collection).

Abu Dhabi is a city with almost 200 international communities in its midst, but culture has been something of an afterthought. But, enthusiasm among the Emirati population is growing, and local artists are emerging. "We want to show the world we can take part in a global art scene," says artist Faiza Mubarak. To ensure that they hit their targets of 1.5million visitors per year by 2018, the museums will have to attract the UAE's foreign majority, as well as Arabs from across the region and a proportion of transiting air travellers.

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