Louvre Abu Dhabi

Louvre Abu Dhabi is an art museum on Saadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi, UAE, showcasing artworks from ancient to contemporary times.

Planning your visit

Louvre Abu Dhabi's central idea is chronological and global rather than national. Galleries move forward through time and place civilisations side by side at each stage — a Chinese bronze, an Egyptian figure and a Bactrian object in the same room — arguing that the histories usually taught separately were connected throughout. It is a genuinely different curatorial proposition from most encyclopaedic museums, and it works.

The building carries it. Jean Nouvel's dome, 180 metres across, is a lattice of 7,850 stars in eight layers, and sunlight passing through creates what he called a rain of light, shifting across the white galleries and water channels below. The museum sits partly in the sea on Saadiyat Island, and the effect under the dome is the thing visitors remember most.

The collection includes works acquired outright and long-term loans from French institutions, with major pieces by Leonardo, Van Gogh, Manet and Mondrian rotating through.

Allow three hours minimum.

Bookable options include general admission and day tours from Dubai combining the museum with the Zayed National Museum and teamLab Phenomena. Current availability is shown below.