‘Most beautiful building on Earth’ opens in Dubai

DUBAI

Dubai opened its Museum of the Future on Feb. 22, a spectacular structure it is touting as the world’s most beautiful building.

The museum, a seven-storey hollow silver ellipse decorated with Arabic calligraphy of quotes from Dubai’s ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, and thousands of meters of LED lights, takes pride of place on Sheikh Zayed Road, the city’s main highway.

While its contents are yet to be revealed, it will exhibit design and technology innovations, taking the visitor on a “journey to the year 2071,” organizers said.

Roadside signboards described the museum -- just minutes away from the world’s tallest construction, the Burj Khalifa -- as the “most beautiful building on Earth” ahead of its gala opening.

It is the latest addition to the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) collection of flashy architecture and comes after the $7-billion Expo world fair, featuring a swathe of futuristic designs, opened on Dubai’s outskirts on 30 September.

The UAE’s capital Abu Dhabi is home to a branch of the Louvre, whose licence was extended by a decade last year to 2047 at a cost of 165 million euros.

Since French President Emmanuel Macron opened the Louvre Abu Dhabi in late 2017, it attracted some two million visitors in its first two years, before COVID hit.

The wealthy UAE has made no secret of intentions to boost its soft power as a trading and tourism hub and to diversify its economy away from oil.

It has also sought to expand its space sector, sending its first astronaut into space in 2019 and a probe named “Amal” (Hope) into orbit around Mars in 2021, the first Arab country to pull off such a feat.