Dubai has announced plans for a Museum of the Future to mark the emirate’s hosting of the 2020 World Expo, Al Arabiya reports. The unusual building is to be Dubai’s own Eiffel Tower, echoing Paris’ famous icon, which was also originally conceived for a World Expo, albeit more than a century ago.
The ambitious project was presented by the Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UEA and Ruler of Dubai Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid al-Maktoum on Wednesday. The Sheikh said the museum’s catchphrase “See the future, create the future” reflected the government’s commitment to innovation.
Sheikh al-Maktoum told Al Arabiya “The Museum of the Future will be an incubator for ideas and real designs, a driver for innovation and a global destination for inventors and entrepreneurs.” The Sheikh is a staunch champion of art, who even ordered metro stations to be turned into mini-museums (Dubai’s Metro Stations Will Be Turned Into Mini-Museums). The art scene in the emirate has never been so buoyant (Alserkal Avenue Previews Expansion in Dubai).
At a special preview, the UAE Cabinet Minister Mohammed al-Gergawi added that the museum sought to “give hope and a glimpse of what the potential is.” He also revealed that the exhibits would be updated regularly, so that visitors to the museum would never know what to expect.
Explaining the eye-catching design, architect Shaun Killa explained “The solid element of the building symbolizes what we know today representing what we know to be the future, and the void represents what we don’t know. So we constantly are looking towards the future and discovering new possibilities.”
The Museum of the Future, Dubai is scheduled to open in 2017.