Abu Dhabi is planning to open a new performing arts centre designed by Frank Gehry on Saadiyat Island by 2030, a project the emirate hopes will cement its position as a serious destination for performing arts.
Dar al-Funoon, or House of the Arts, will sit alongside the Saadiyat Cultural District, which is rapidly becoming one of the most ambitious cultural clusters in the world. The Louvre Abu Dhabi, the Zayed National Museum, the Natural History Museum by Mecanoo and TeamLab Phenomena by TeamLab Architects are already open, while the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi is expected to welcome visitors later this year.
Dar al-Funoon is being developed by the Department of Culture and Tourism. The venue will host operas, ballets and theatre productions, but also orchestral concerts, musicals, festivals and cultural events, alongside more intimate performances.
The main multipurpose hall will seat over 2,000 people, with an orchestra pit large enough for 120 musicians and acoustics engineered for major productions.
Details have not been overlooked, and every genre will get its own dedicated space, thoughtfully designed for optimum enjoyment and performance.
Beyond the main hall, a 3,500-seat outdoor amphitheatre will host large-scale events and festivals, while a 400-seat studio theatre is earmarked for experimental and community productions. Jazz, meanwhile, will be celebrated in its own specially designed 250-seat venue, offering a more intimate atmosphere suited to the genre.
No such place would be complete without food, beverage and retail space, and Dar al-Funoon will be dotted with 5,000 square metres of delectation for the eyes and stomach.
The space is intended to be open year-round, not just for one-off events but as a permanent home for major live productions, with artistic residencies on offer and international touring partnerships and co-productions with performing arts centres around the world.
Mohamed Khalifa Al Mubarak, chairman of the Department of Culture and Tourism Abu Dhabi, described the project as a reflection of the emirate’s long-term investment in artistic expression and cultural development, saying the centre “will be a permanent home for performance, bringing together leading artists, companies and creative talent from the UAE, the region and across the world”.
Ghery’s undulating design is spectacular, a rippling, fabric-like exterior that seems to breathe and shift, inspired by the movements of the sea and wind. It is very much his signature: the same restless, sculptural energy that defines the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, and the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris. Gehry, who passed away in December 2025 at the age of 96, also designed the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, currently under construction on the same island. Dar al-Funoon will rank among the final projects of his extraordinary career.
Reactions on LinkedIn have been enthusiastic. One commenter described the project as “adding a heartbeat to the district”, arguing that Abu Dhabi was demonstrating once again that “culture is infrastructure too”. Others pointed to the broader significance of the investment, noting that the strongest cities in history were shaped not only by roads, towers and transactions, but also by places that gave people “a reason to return, remember and belong”.
