Museum of the Future, Museum in Financial District, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
The Museum of the Future is a silver oval structure in Dubai's Financial District rising across seven floors. The form sits on a green hill and uses no interior columns, creating large open rooms where visitors walk between installations.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum announced the project on 4 March 2015, after a Museum of the Future exhibition at the World Government Summit drew visitors. The Dubai Future Foundation took charge of it in April 2016, and Sheikh Mohammed inaugurated the finished building on 22 February 2022. Killa Design, the firm of architect Shaun Killa, designed the torus shell, engineered by Buro Happold.
The golden script running across the exterior belongs to Arabic calligraphy forming three poems by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum. Each poem addresses time and how people can shape what comes next, while natural light filters through the letterforms into the interior spaces.
The route begins on the fifth floor after visitors take elevators upward. Rooms then lead downward through different themes, with each level taking between twenty and forty minutes.
The facade consists of 1,024 stainless steel panels placed by robots with millimeter precision. This construction method made it possible to build the complex curve without joints or supports, making the oval form appear weightless.
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