Saadiyat Island: a shimmering vision of the future

On January 1st - with an insufferable hangover and a throat-clenching realisation that another year was sitting before me, just waiting to be got through -  I headed for Abu Dhabi to revitalise my weary skin and rekindle my passion for the Arabic world.

Abu Dhabi is not currently the most inspiring of destinations, and when I wasn’t eating or reading I was searching for some crumbling remnants of pre-oil Arabian romance. This search was in vain, for the past has been obliterated in the gulf and replaced with skyscrapers and giant shopping malls. But a small exhibition on ‘Saadiyat Island’ in the corner of the Emirates Palace made me realise that it is the future, and not the past, that will come to define this indefinable part of the world.

Visit the official website here.

‘Saadiyat Island’ is the proposed cultural province of the Emirates; it is their attempt to coax the Western world’s cultural elite out of their comfortable nests in New York and Paris, and brave the dusty, desert heat. I was sceptical when this plan was first explained to me: Sydney has always struck me as damning proof that no amount of money or architectural prowess can buy culture, and this seemed to me a similar attempt, albeit on a larger scale.

But after wandering around the exhibition I found myself overcome by the passion and determination with which the Emirates have pursued this objective. In the last forty years they have transformed a gathering of bivouacs and pearl divers into a bustling, torrential marketplace of international corporations. They have shifted the planet on it’s axis, and reminded us that if the West is to survive into the new millennium we must appreciate that we are only the ‘West’, and there is now an ‘East’ to be dealt with.

Abu Dhabi is at the centre of this new global commercial and cultural world. They have a vast proportion of the world’s oil, and an ideal location between the US and China for stopover flights and the transfer of commodities. Throughout history, it has been commercial centres and transport hubs that have created great societies, cultures and artistic movements. Egypt, Crete, Ionia, Athens, the British Empire - all of these world-changing societies were founded on commerce and geographical advantage. Maybe now it is time for the Gulf states to lead the world forward, and Saadiyat Island is a magnificent and shimmering statement of intent.

The Island will house a Guggenheim Museum (designed by Frank Gehry, who also designed the Bilbao museum), the first outpost of the Louvre (a project that has been officially and gratefully sanctioned by the French government), an indescribable Performing Arts centre, and outposts of the Sorbonne and New York University to attract young artists and thinkers.

Just watch the short film clip in the ‘Louvre’ section of the website to get an idea of the magnanimity of this project. This is no mere Opera House; Abu Dhabi is shattering expectations, and building a cultural epicentre so epic that the Western world can only ignore it at their own peril. This might be Sydney on a larger scale, but the scale is so large that they might just succeed… and I for one hope that they do.