Buying Culture in bulk

[Mike McCarty]

The following is from the blog:

The Artful Manager
Andrew Taylor on the business of arts and culture


February 8, 2007
Buying culture in bulk

The New York Times reminds us all (login required) that the next cultural construction boom isn't in New York, or L.A., or even in London or Paris, but in the United Arab Emirates, where massive investments in real estate and civic infrastructure now include the arts.

The Times article details the newly unveiled plans for $27 billion worth of cultural development, including three museums by iconic architects -- Frank Gehry, Jean Nouvel, and Tadao Ando -- as well as a multi-venue performing arts center by Zaha Hadid (music hall, concert hall, opera house, and two theaters, one seating up to 6,300)...oh, and an arts college, arts schools, and 19 public pavilions.

In all, the project, known as the Cultural District of Saadiyat Island, would create an exhibition space intended to turn this once-sleepy desert city along the Persian Gulf into an international arts capital and tourist destination. If completed according to plan sometime in the next decade, consultants predict, it could be the world's largest single arts-and-culture development project in recent memory.
Youssef Ibrahim in the New York Sun thinks the effort brash and ill-considered. Abeer Mishkhas in the Arab News wonders why a big chunk of the art has to come from the Louvre (another chunk will be part of the Guggenheim franchise).

This Abu Dhabi arts mega-plex announcement comes after similarly lofty blueprints emerged in nearby Dubai (say those last two words five times fast), and concurrent initiatives to develop more integrated and thoughtful cultural policy for the neighboring country of Oman.

While the effort may well lead these cities to the same challenges and frustrations of every other city that's constructed an iconic cultural edifice, at least we can be sure that the consultant economy will flourish in the Middle East.