It is hoped that art will help bridge the cultural divide between East and West when the latest Guggenheim Museum opens in Abu Dhabi. Dan Hayes reports

Few institutions put a city on the cultural map more emphatically than a Guggenheim Museum. Take the example of the recession-hit Spanish city of Bilbao, whose Frank Gehry-designed Guggenheim opened in 1997. By 2000, UK newspaper the Financial Times estimated that the museum had generated €500m ($667m) in economic activity, plus another €100m in tax revenues. In 2005, the museum estimated it generated €186m in GDP and helped maintain 4,483 jobs.

The impressive titanium pinnacles of the Guggenheim Bilbao are set to be dwarfed by the latest addition to the family, however, as the foundation finalises plans for an outpost in Abu Dhabi. This will take shape on a man-made spit of land jutting out into the Arabian Gulf from the currently uninhabited Saadiyat Island, and will be designed by Canadian-born architect Gehry.

The presence of such a globally recognised centre for the arts will raise the profile of the emirate on the world stage, and will provide a high-culture destination in an area of the world not generally associated with the arts.

The Guggenheim Abu Dhabi will be hard to ignore. Covering 100,000sq m, and believed to be costing around $200m, it is scheduled to open its doors in 2012. Gehry has talked of the need to create a specific type of architecture that is in keeping with the Arabian desert and the way it meets the Gulf at this point. ‘I want to play off the blue water and the colour of the sand and sky and sun,’ he told the Associated Press last year. ‘It’s got to be something that will make sense here. If you import something and plop it down, it’s not going to work.’

The museum will have its own permanent collection of contemporary art and will also show temporary exhibitions. While some of what is on show will no doubt be cutting edge, Islamic sensibilities will be respected, and figures in paintings and sculpture will be clothed. Likewise religious themes are likely to be avoided.

Thomas Krens, director of the Guggenheim Foundation, says: ‘Our objective is not to be confrontational, but to be engaged in cultural exchange. There are things that we don’t do in New York because we feel that it is not appropriate to do them in this city. Our commitment to international communication and global cultural exchange – realised through our museums, collections and programmes – is inclusive. The Guggenheim implicitly regards all contemporary cultures and their traditions as potential partners in the field of aesthetic discourse.’

The Abu Dhabi project also provides an opportunity to grow the Guggenheim brand. Krens adds: ‘This is an extraordinary opportunity for the Guggenheim to become involved in the Middle East. Our challenge now is to define the next generation of Guggenheim Museums.’

‘This is a major step forward for Saadiyat Island and its Cultural District.’

Such an aim has been something of a mission for Krens. Since he joined the Guggenheim in 1988 various projects have been on the drawing board, but have failed to become bricks and mortar (or steel and glass). Included on the list of near-misses are a Guggenheim Taiwan that was to have been designed by Zaha Hadid, but was sunk by lack of government funding and local infrastructural issues – the proposed host city, Taichung, had no international airport, for example.

Plans for a Guggenheim Rio de Janeiro, designed by French architect Jean Nouvel and including a tract of recreated rain-forest and a 60m tower, were abandoned in 2005, while the Mexican city of Guadalajara is still working on raising the money for its own Guggenheim.

Cash is unlikely to be an issue in Abu Dhabi. HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of the emirate, says: ‘We don’t see financial investment as a major obstacle.’ He adds that the presence of the Guggenheim will underline the emirate’s efforts to become a cultural destination that will attract visitors from across the globe. ‘It demonstrates the commitment of UAE President and Ruler of Abu Dhabi, His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, demonstrably to establish this emirate as a quality destination of international standing.

‘This is a major step forward for Saadiyat Island and its Cultural District, which will become an international cultural hub for the Middle East on a par with the best in the world. It also represents a significant development in the creation and nurturing of international cultural ties, which we believe will do much to forge greater understanding between all nations.’

The Guggenheim will be the focal point of the Saadiyat (Arabic for ‘isle of happiness’) district’s attractions. Also within the development will be a national museum, maritime museum and performing arts centre, and the Abu Dhabi government is keen to attract other world-famous cultural institutions.

Saadiyat will be the largest mixed-use development in the Arabian Gulf, with 30km of water frontage and attractive natural features such as mangrove forest. Its development will take place in three stages, with completion scheduled for 2018. When it is finished the island will have six districts, 29 hotels, three marinas with anchorage for over 1,000 boats, two golf courses, housing developments and two motorways that will offer rapid transport to the airport, 25km away.

Krens, for one, is impressed by the planned development. ‘The plans for Saadiyat Island and the cultural district are extraordinary. When this vision is realised it will set a standard for a global culture that will resonate for decades.’

Rumours abound as to what other cultural attractions could be heading to Abu Dhabi. Top of the list is a branch of the Louvre. Nouvel is said to have had meetings with officials in Abu Dhabi, potentially to discuss this very subject, and the race may be on to secure a lucrative cultural foothold in the emirate.

French newspaper Libération recently quoted one French diplomat as saying: ‘The authorities of Abu Dhabi want a rapid completion. If we do not do that in the short term, other European museums, such as St Petersburg’s Hermitage, are ready to do it.’