Frank Gehry – the architect behind the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao and the Louis Vuitton Foundation in Paris – met key Abu Dhabi officials at the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi museum site on Saadiyat Island.
Gehry was welcomed by Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed, member of Abu Dhabi Executive Council and chairman of the Abu Dhabi Executive Office, and Mohamed Khalifa Al Mubarak, chairman of the Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi.
Also in attendance were William Mack and Wendy Fisher, chairman and president of the board of trustees of the Solomon R Guggenheim Foundation.
During the visit, Sheikh Khaled discussed the progress of the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi and reiterated the project’s goals of cultivating cultural exchange and transforming Abu Dhabi into a hub for culture and creativity.
The museum, designed by Gehry, was initially announced in 2006. Though its opening has faced delays along the way, the institution has been working on building its collection and, over the last year, has put together various virtual programmes.
Gehry’s design responds to the museum’s unique seafront location, with its three sides flanked by the Arabian Gulf. The building is planned at 30,000 square metres, which will be the largest facility for the Solomon R Guggenheim Foundation once completed. The gallery space will measure about 12,000 square metres.
Inspired by Middle Eastern design, including courtyards and wind towers, the various galleries will be linked by bridges around a central courtyard. Gehry has also envisioned various spaces for exhibition galleries, an education and research space, a conservation laboratory, a cultural centre and one for art and technology.
__________________
Frank Gehry's impressive structures
Rock in a Hard Place: Music and Mayhem in the Middle East
Orlando Crowcroft
Zed Books
Slow loris biog
From: Lonely Loris is a Sunda slow loris, one of nine species of the animal native to Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore
Status: Critically endangered, and listed as vulnerable on the International Union for Conservation of Nature red list due to growing demand in the global exotic pet trade. It is one of the most popular primate species found at Indonesian pet markets
Likes: Sleeping, which they do for up to 18 hours a day. When they are awake, they like to eat fruit, insects, small birds and reptiles and some types of vegetation
Dislikes: Sunlight. Being a nocturnal animal, the slow loris wakes around sunset and is active throughout the night
Superpowers: His dangerous elbows. The slow loris’s doe eyes may make it look cute, but it is also deadly. The only known venomous primate, it hisses and clasps its paws and can produce a venom from its elbow that can cause anaphylactic shock and even death in humans
The major Hashd factions linked to Iran:
Badr Organisation: Seen as the most militarily capable faction in the Hashd. Iraqi Shiite exiles opposed to Saddam Hussein set up the group in Tehran in the early 1980s as the Badr Corps under the supervision of the Iran Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). The militia exalts Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei but intermittently cooperated with the US military.
Saraya Al Salam (Peace Brigade): Comprised of former members of the officially defunct Mahdi Army, a militia that was commanded by Iraqi cleric Moqtada Al Sadr and fought US and Iraqi government and other forces between 2004 and 2008. As part of a political overhaul aimed as casting Mr Al Sadr as a more nationalist and less sectarian figure, the cleric formed Saraya Al Salam in 2014. The group’s relations with Iran has been volatile.
Kataeb Hezbollah: The group, which is fighting on behalf of the Bashar Al Assad government in Syria, traces its origins to attacks on US forces in Iraq in 2004 and adopts a tough stance against Washington, calling the United States “the enemy of humanity”.
Asaeb Ahl Al Haq: An offshoot of the Mahdi Army active in Syria. Asaeb Ahl Al Haq’s leader Qais al Khazali was a student of Mr Al Moqtada’s late father Mohammed Sadeq Al Sadr, a prominent Shiite cleric who was killed during Saddam Hussein’s rule.
Harakat Hezbollah Al Nujaba: Formed in 2013 to fight alongside Mr Al Assad’s loyalists in Syria before joining the Hashd. The group is seen as among the most ideological and sectarian-driven Hashd militias in Syria and is the major recruiter of foreign fighters to Syria.
Saraya Al Khorasani: The ICRG formed Saraya Al Khorasani in the mid-1990s and the group is seen as the most ideologically attached to Iran among Tehran’s satellites in Iraq.
(Source: The Wilson Centre, the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation)
