Paris: The UAE will set up an international heritage museum in Abu Dhabi that will shelter the works of art and cultural heritage saved [or to be saved] from the conflict areas across the world, Gulf News has learnt.
The proposed state-of-the-art museum will be the first if its kind in the world, said highly placed sources. The facility will act as a safe haven to mainly protect the cultural monuments and artefacts in the Middle East, which are threatened by ongoing conflicts.
The museum is likely to be announced at the conference on Safeguarding Endangered Cultural Heritage, which will be held in Abu Dhabi on December 2 and 3. The UAE and France are jointly hosting the conference in the wake of widespread destruction of thousands of years’ old priceless cultural monuments caused by Daesh militants in Iraq and Syria recently.
The new museum will be independent of Louvre Abu Dhabi, which will be opened in 2017.
Asked for a comment about the proposed museum, a senior UAE official told Gulf News from Abu Dhabi by email that the UAE would be delivering a number of cultural facilities in the coming years. “It currently has a state-of-the-art archive and will deliver institutions that can aspire to become the safe havens of tomorrow,” said Mohammad Khalifa Al Mubarak, chairman of Abu Dhabi Tourism and Culture Authority.
Any institution that presents the right conditions to receive the national treasures of another country may be qualified to be considered safe havens, he said. This could include institutions such as museums, libraries, archives or specifically built ad hoc sites, Al Mubarak added.
Meanwhile, a senior French official said that Abu Dhabi has become the intellectual capital of the region with its initiatives to preserve culture and heritage.
The UAE was chosen to host the conference on Safeguarding Endangered Cultural Heritage due to many historical and contemporary reasons that support the cause of this initiative, said Jack Lang, French President Francois Hollande’s representative to the conference.
He was speaking to a group of senior journalists from 12 countries, who were invited by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs for a press tour to Paris for a detailed briefing on the conference.
Lang said the UAE strictly followed the legacy of late Shaikh Zayed, [the founding father of the nation] who successfully established the unity of the Emirates and strived for peace and harmony in the region. The UAE follows the important statements of Shaikh Zayed, which value culture, heritage and sustainability, Lang pointed out.
“That’s why we decided to build Louvre [museum] in Abu Dhabi, the first international museum in the Arab world,” Lang said.
Lang said French officials and ADTCA have been closely working together for several months to organise this important conference that will also discuss the trafficking of heritage goods and propose solutions to end this practice, he said.
