Vision in the Desert - Guggenheim Museum, a classical museum, a performing arts center, a maritime museum

Half century ago Abu Dhabi was a sleepy settlement of palm-front huts and Bedouin encampments, its few thousand inhabitants mostly subsisting on fishing and the pearl-diving trade. Oil changed all that of course, and since the 1960s Abu Dhabi has morphed into a modern capital of hotels and high rises, fulfilling the economic vision of the United Arab Emirates’ ambitious former leader, Sheik Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan (link).
Now the city is on the verge of another audacious leap. Over the next decade or so it aims to become one of the great cultural centers of the Middle East: the heir, in its way, to cosmopolitan cities of old like Beirut, Cairo and Baghdad.
This latter-day Xanadu, as envisioned in a glittering multimillion-dollar exhibition in the lobby of the opulent Emirates Palace Hotel (link) here, would boast four museums, a performing arts center and 19 art pavilions designed by celebrated architects like Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid and Jean Nouvel. The development could include leading cultural lights of the West, from the Guggenheim to the Louvre to Yale University.
Just one component of a $27 billion residential, office and hotel development planned for Saadiyat Island (Island of Happiness), the 670-acre cultural district is still in the nascent stages. Most of the major cultural institutions have yet to sign on officially, and the Guggenheim, for one, is well known for chasing unrealized dreams. Some will dismiss this kingdom of culture as a mere tourist development in which art, history and regional identity are reduced to marketing commodities. But those who view it as an exercise in global branding or as a feel-good story about an Arab country willing to embrace the values of Western modernity are missing the point.