United Arab Emirates (UAE). Abu Dhabi.The Louvre Abu Dhabi is an art and civilization museum. Arabic writings on the glass window. The museum is part of a thirty-year agreement between the city of Abu Dhabi and the French government. The museum is located on the Saadiyat Island Cultural District. It is approximately 24,000 square metres in size, with 8,000 square meters of galleries, making it the largest art museum in the Arabian peninsula. Jean Nouvel (born 12 August 1945), a French architect, has conceived the Louvre Abu Dhabi. Now considered as one of the modern urban wonders of the world, Louvre Abu Dhabi is not only the Arab world’s first universal museum but a powerful symbol of the United Arab Emirates’ ambition and achievement. The centre piece of Nouvel’s vision is a huge silvery dome that appears to float above the museum-city. Despite its apparent weightlessness, the dome weighs around 7,500 tonnes. Inspired by the cupola, a distinctive feature in Arabic architecture, Nouvel’s dome is a complex, geometric structure of 7,850 stars. These stars are repeated at various sizes and angles in eight different layers. As the sun passes above, its light filters through the perforations in the dome to create an enchanting effect within the museum, known as the ‘rain of light'. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is a country in Western Asia at the northeast end of the Arabian Peninsula. 21.02.2020 © 2020 Didier Ruef