2modern Post: Here it is!

Oky-dokey.
For those of you who read my blog regularly, this will be somewhat of a repeat, however, 2modern has heard nothing of this amazing modern architectural place called Saadiyat Island, the Cultural District in Abu Dhabi, the exhibit that Giuseppe and I went to when in Abu Dhabi a few weeks back. So, I talked to Greg and let him know that I would be posting on this topic, and got the go-ahead, so...I am so happy to be sharing what is going on in this booming area with all those interested in architecture and the millions (thousand?) of people who read 2modern.
I will be posting pictures on the 2modern post, but to save some time, and repetitiveness of images here, this is just the text-version (with some possibility of editing before I post live, so, it may not be exactly like this, but, oh whatever....enjoy and wish me luck!)

(I don't know when they will post live, so keep checking the 2modern site.) Yay!

Architecture of a New World: Modern Middle East

This is my first time posting for 2modern, so Hi! My name is Danielle and I writing from my flat in Dubai, and I am so appreciative of Greg and the 2modern team for giving me a place to spill my creative energy - other than onto the consciences of my architect husband and our families...

Abu Dhabi’s Saadiyat Island (“Island of Happiness”) is soon to be home to four of the world’s most famous and prominent architectural accomplishments, including 3 museums and 1 performing arts center by 4 of the world’s most renowned architects: Zaha Hadid, Jean Nouvel, Frank Gehry and Tadao Ando. In addition to being an uninhibited, ambitious, pedestrian-friendly developing island, Abu Dhabi is about to add to it’s roster of accomplishments: one of the world’s culture capitals of the world. If Dubai is like L.A., glitz and glamour galore, then Abu Dhabi is like San Francisco. It’s got roots. It has history. It has culture that is inherent and not manufactured. And it is about to have a whole lot more culture to speak of.

Over the course of 15 years, this 'happy little island' will phase into an art-meets-architecture wonder, quenching the hunger for a large portion of eye – and brain – candy. That is sure to make many people very happy.

Slated to open in 2012 is the Louvre Abu Dhabi, a sister satellite to the Louvre Paris, designed by Jean Nouvel. What can I say, this museum is like art come to life. A canopy of different patterns interlaced into a translucent ceiling allow for dispersed web-like shapes to bounce around every space like a million Tinkerbells. Magical, light-infused and organic all come to mind when trying to describe what Nouvel himself refers to as "an archaeological field revived as a small city, a cluster of nearly one-room buildings places along a leisurely promenade...covered with a large dome, a form common to all civilizations." It is a whimsical micro-world beautifully reflected in the surrounding water oasis; the conceptual renderings are so dreamlike, one experiences them as though it is photography of an already-realized museum. I can only imagine what the reality will be. On a more factual-basis, the museum, 24,000 sq. meters in size, will rotate between 200-300 pieces of the most influential and priceless works of art over 10 years and 4 temporary exhibits per year for 15 years. With the full support of France, French President Jacques Chirac says the agreement allows for the bridging of what the "world considers a clash of civilizations" between Islam and the West." If the universal language of art can't bring the globe together, what can?

Also set to open in 2012 is the 29,700 sq. meter Abu Dhabi Guggenheim Museum by Frank Gehry, a deconstructivist architectural amalgamation which will feature permanent collections, galleries, a center for art and technology, archives, a state of the art conservation laboratory and much more. At first glance, one might think, much like I did, having once been an architecture student: it resembles the thesis-floor leftovers after a mass model-making convention. But in fact, the museum incorporates into its many 'pieces' climate engineering practices, which, in my opinion, is a mandatory consideration living in the desert. Dispersed throughout the program, near the galleries, are a number of conical-shaped tubes that ultimately will create outdoor spaces, but provide a deeper function: "cooling outdoor spaces based on the very old idea of the open top teepee that draws the hot air out of the space." Although still in conceptual phase, the Guggenheim is sure to bring in a tourist - or millions - to navigate this four-floor multi-gallery art jungle-gym.

When one thinks of Zaha Hadid, the sometimes in-famous architect who is best know for questioning and redefining traditional architecture, one word comes - or should come - to mind: sculptural. The Glasgow Museum in the UK, The Contemporary Arts Center in Rome, The Vitra Fire Station in Germany. Her buildings (although some not realized) deal with form, abstraction, line, light, function, texture and architectonics in the most unconventional of ways. Happy to say, the Performing Arts Center in Abu Dhabi is no exception to this rule. I think of it as a smooth, simple organic arm growing and reaching out into the Gulf, almost swimming or gliding, as though ready to slide right off the island edge. It is so integral with the landscape, and yet somehow, stands alone. The overall form, cellular of sorts, is reflected throughout the entire building (considering that the concept for the building came from examining basic geometries of biological plants life, this comes as no surprise): "a sculptural form that emerges from a linear intersection of pedestrian paths within the cultural district, gradually developing into a growing organism that sprouts a network of successive branches. As it winds through the site, the architecture increases in complexity, building up height and depth and achieving multiple summits in the bodies housing the performance spaces, which spring from the structure like fruits on a vine and face westward, toward the water."
OH-MY-GOSH. I feel like I am experiencing poetry-in-motion when I read those words from Hadid herself. Set to house 5 theaters in total, I am eagerly awaiting to feed off of this architectural branch.

Water. Light. Simple. Modern. Serene. Tadao Ando. His architecture speaks volumes so quietly. I am a huge fan of Ando, I happen to be a huge fan of Japan and Japanese architecture and design as well, so it helps that he is, well, Japanese. There is something about the way he achieves 'modern' seamlessly and effortlessly. Tadao Ando is designing the Maritime Museum on Saadiyat Island, where Ando takes into consideration the nature, landscape and the maritime traditions of Abu Dhabi in developing this fluid, architectural volume. "With it's reflective surface, the water court visually merges site and sea...the volume shaped by the force and fluidity of Abu Dhabi's winds." Housing an interior like that of a boat, with floating decks and ramps, visitors will be guided "through the exhibition space, echoing the theme of the museum and creating a dynamic gallery experience. Dhows float over the voids of the interior space and help create an intense visual experience by relating objects to one another and to the museum architecture as a whole." The museum almost resembles a gate into the water from the island, an intentional move Ando was attempting to achieve by "defining a space of encounter between two important landscape elements of Abu Dhabi's culture."

Since none of these buildings will be completed anytime soon, I apologize that my experiences and explanations of them are merely skimming the surface, having only seen the huge exhibit at the Emirates Palace in Abu Dhabi and having read many, many articles discussing this future endeavor. But I hope that anyone interested in art and/or architecture in the slightest will at sometime, come for a visit in my new world of the UAE and take a little taste of what I hope becomes a huge success, tucking the world of art, architecture, travel and global communication onto a neat little "Island of Happiness."