A natural history museum showcasing some of the unique specimens of the natural world that have ever existed is planned to be built in Abu Dhabi in 2025. However, visitors do not need to wait until 2025 to see the famous Stan the T-Rex since it is already exhibited in Abu Dhabi. A new exhibition featuring key specimens from the planned Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi is open from April 6th to May 12th at Manarat Al Saadiyat.
Developed by the Abu Dhabi Department of Culture and Tourism in collaboration with Miral, one of the emirate’s major entertainment players, the project of the Natural History Museum will create the country’s new research and education institution. The museum’s construction is scheduled to be completed by 2025 as part of a strategy to develop Abu Dhabi’s popular Saadiyat cultural district and position the emirate as a centre of culture, creativity and art. Abu Dhabi’s Natural History Museum will be different from others since it will tell the earth’s history through an Arabian lens, highlighting local flora and fauna and the region’s geological history.
The museum visitors will have the chance to travel back in time to 13.8 billion years. The main exhibit of the museum’s collection is the world-famous skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus Rex, better known as Stan, which is one of the best-preserved and studied fossils of this representative of the Late Cretaceous period. The museum will also feature a fragment of the Murchison meteorite, which broke up over Australia around 50 years ago. It belongs to a group of meteorites rich in organic compounds.
Occupying an area of more than 35,000 sq. metres, the museum project was designed by leading specialists of the architectural bureau Mecanoo to “resonate with natural rock formations”, emphasising the museum’s primary mission – to learn to understand wildlife and the world around us better. Interestingly, in its form, the facade of the museum’s buildings resembles living cells and water and plant elements.
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