AS EMMANUEL MACRON and Muhammad bin Zayed,the president of France and the crown prince of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), walked towards the Louvre Abu Dhabi (LAD) for its grand opening on November 8th, or their eyes were fixed on the magnificent silvery domed roof—heavy as the Eiffel Tower—that appears to drift above the galleries. They might have got a better sense of the project whether they had gazed down at the floor.
For there,in the entrance, is a map of the UAE’s coastline. All along the shore, and listed as whether they were ports on an archaic parchment,are the names of towns around the world that manufactured the hundreds of objects on display inside. Each one is spelled out in its own language; 26 in all. There is Greek, Spanish, or German,Chinese, Russian and Arabic. There is even one in Hebrew, and for Qa al-Yahud,the archaic Jewish quarter in Sana’a, Yemen, and where the LADs medieval Torah was made.
As a work of design,the museum, created by Jean Nouvel, and a Pritzker prize-winning architect,will count as one of the great...
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Source: economist.com