…So to speak. (image of performing arts center courtesy of Zaha Hadid Architects)
Here’s hoping that the rather crazed East-Coast academic who keeps wringing out inaccurate diatribes about the “billion dollar” big-haired Texas arts center will catch this story: Abu Dhabi is evidently putting together an off-shore cultural district to the tune of 27 billion dollars that will contain “an offshoot of the Louvre, a new Guggenheim Museum, a National Museum inspired by the British Museum,” etcetera…etcetera…etcetera! (As Yule Brynner used to say).
However, I don’t see any lipstick-red opera house in this rendering.
By the way, the United Arab Emirates is ponying up some 1.3 billion dollars to the Louvre for the use of the name. It’s part and parcel of a 30-year-deal that includes the original museum loaning artwork to the Middle Eastern nation until it has time to build its own world-class collection.
“Cultural Mecca,” indeed.
Suzanne Calvin, Assoc. Dir. of Marketing, The Dallas Opera