We are acclimating to Abu Dhabi. After a very nice breakfast in the hotel (does one work at trying everything that's on offer? or just stick to a known, lite, fruit and toast routine?) we walk outside to the taxi line. Please take me to the Abu Dhabi Louvre.
The first surprise is the building. It's like a spaceship landed on top of the museum galleries. A flying saucer whose surface is made of multiple thin layers, each one a stellated meshwork of Islamic patterns. I had looked in Google Maps aerial view and saw what I thought was a sphere. It's just the top slice.
The galleries are a loop of rooms very loosely laid out, placed on a pool of water. The layout is sparse enough that there is blank space between the galleries. The passageways between galleries have full-wall windows looking out to turquoise blue water and the white exterior walls. Stunning!
As soon as we approach the museum I hear French conversations. I guess it makes sense the French will want to see what the Louvre is up to outside of Paris. Plenty of Arabic spoken, and if course many Chinese tourists -- not as many as in Australia, but a lot.
The cutest thing is the school field trips. Wow there are a lot of them. So many kids, all in their school uniforms. In one gallery early in the loop there's a class of them sitting in the floor in front of a large, beautiful, Egyptian statue of Tutankhamen. The teacher is telling them "This is a statue of an Egyptian leader from long ago. We have leaders today, too. What do leaders do? That's right, they take care of their people."
A number of display cases show three items, one each from Western, Chinese and Arabic traditions. In this case the left and right axe heads are very finely crafted, flaked points from France and Algieria 200,000-500,000 years ago while the center is a much rougher point from Saudi Arabia about 800,000 years ago. At some point there must have been land bridge between western Africa and Gibraltar/Spain.
Monumental statue with two heads, Jordan c. 6500 BCE.
India, mother of pearl and gold.
Tang dynasty. Even the horse has facial expressions.
Hand copied section from Quran, 1250-1300.
Printing characters in Uyghur script, 1350-1400. Pre-Gutenberg, which was 1440.
The Sutra of the Perfection of Wisdom, sacred Buddhist text. Pala dynasty Eastern India, 1191. Ink and gouache on palm leaves.
Amazing these are preserved.
Japanese folding screen with map of the world 1690
Ottoman Empire armor, c. 1500
Kandinsky
And a huge variety of items from different ages and artistic traditions. We remark that it is very different from European museums in which the collection has been growing for a long time, often through periods of very aggressive accumulation, and the museum is built to house the full collection with much of it on display. Here there is a sampling of important items from many cultures and times (many on loan from Paris Louvre) without the other 95% of the holdings.
By gallery 10 of 12 we're ready for lunch, but discover that the loop is essentially one way, there's no shortcut exit, and no re-entry. Power on through!
We have a nice lunch in the cafe with outdoor seating and views across the water. When the weather is cool like today (i.e., warm, not hot) the outdoor seating is so delightful. The white walls, blue water and sky are gorgeous. We start thinking of summertime in MV.
Looking out over the sea turtle rehabilitation pond, under the roof dome
2020 fabric collage from Mali (vertical stripes of colored fabric)
Colossal Olmec head from Tenochtitlan 1200-900 BCE
After lunch we taxi over to the Abrahamic Family Center. The taxi driver is disappointed, it is a walkable distance, so a very short fare for him (then back to the very long taxi queue). But our timing is too tight to walk. In fact when we arrive (and go through security etc) our personal tour has already started without us. We catch up.
AFC is a beautiful idea, that (approx 4.5 Bn) people of these three important world religions can live in harmony. It's all just a few years old, beautifully constructed. Central forum building with a garden and plaza upstairs, then three places of worship adjoining. All three buildings are 30x30x30 meters, same size & same building materials. Exterior designs vary, with explicit symbolism in the numbers of pillars, their shape, etc.
Next we taxi over to Kelsey and Kyle's place. They live in a residential development adjoining the St Regis Hotel. It's great to see them! Daisy is full of energy as we go along to pick her up from daycare. And we get to meet new baby Kit who is just a couple months old. She is a little darling. Kelsey looks great and is enjoying her last couple weeks of maternity leave -- two kids are much more all-consuming than one, even with help, so wondering what the return to working will bring.
St Regis Hotel seems to be the local hotel for celebs and athletes in the nearby entertainment district. Kelsey talked to Dave Chappelle recently, here out of retirement to do a $how. Boston Celtics and other basketball teams, etc.
Over dinner in the hotel/development restaurant wet hear about life in UAE. The expat life while working at ADIA seems pretty luxe. Multiple international trips each year (plus some work trips to USA) and planning a longer home visit to get out of the summer heat. Kind of like us now, maybe with an extra zero tacked on the end, but certainly a life we never would have imagined in our thirties. Kathy and I take bets on when Kelsey and Kyle are moving back to the US. Their good friends and neighbors of ten years just announced a move back to Australia. We both settle on "never."
There is construction everywhere in the museum district. However apparently Sheikh Zayed has said cranes must be out be end of 2026, so the new national museum, natural history museum and Guggenheim museum will all be finished.
Kyle tells a story of low number license plates being a status symbol. 2 digits better than 3 digits etc. One guy wants to buy all ten single digit plates for his ten fancy cars, had spent $80 million so far. Basically funny money. I guess we can be proud that our petrodollars are helping to build all the gorgeous buildings and cultural centers here.
If you haven't seen Dave Chapelle's recent appearance on SNL right before Trump was sworn in for a 2nd time, it's worth seeing. Very clever. It's on YouTube.
ReplyDeleteWow, everything looks very impressive!
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