"Abu Dhabi has finished a year of major announcements by opening two further museums: the Zayed National Museum (ZNM), designed by Norman Foster, and the Natural History Museum, both on Saadiyat Island. These latest additions follow the news that Frieze Abu Dhabi will launch next year, also on Saadiyat, and wii coincide with the first auctions in the emirate by Sotheby's, in which Abu Dhabi's sovereign wealth fund ADQ now has a minority stake."
"Three of the five have now opened or are soon to open: the ZNM, the Louvre Abu Dhabi and the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi. A maritime museum was also initially planned, to be designed by Tadao Ando, and some of that material has been absorbed into the two museums that recently opened. Zaha Hadid was also to design a performing arts complex. Both were quietly put on indefinite hold around 2016 and 2017, when construction on all the museums, except for the Louvre Abu Dhabi, stalled."
Abu Dhabi opened the Zayed National Museum (ZNM), designed by Norman Foster, and the Natural History Museum on Saadiyat Island. The ZNM spans 56,000 sq. m and presents UAE history from ancient Arabian Peninsula civilisations to the country's founding. The openings follow announcements that Frieze Abu Dhabi will launch next year on Saadiyat and that Sotheby's will hold auctions in the emirate with ADQ taking a minority stake. Mohamed Khalifa Al Mubarak stated that culture is central and that the museum traces human interaction with the land back 300,000 years. The ZNM was one of five institutions proposed for Saadiyat in 2007. Several planned projects were absorbed or put on indefinite hold when construction stalled around 2016–2017. In 2009 the ZNM signed a ten-year contract with the British Museum for consultation, capacity-building, and loan-sharing.
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