Team Lab's Sinuous Immersive Gallery Opens on Saadiyat Island
Japanese art collective TeamLab has collaborated with architecture studio MZ Architects to create a permanent venue for its immersive artworks on Saadiyat Island, Abu Dhabi. The new gallery, TeamLab Phenomena Abu Dhabi, joins the cultural landscape of Saadiyat Island, which already includes the Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi, Zayed National Museum, and Louvre Abu Dhabi.
The building, designed in collaboration with MZ Architects, features a continuous white facade made from glass fibre-reinforced concrete, with an almost windowless structure. It encloses a 17,000-square-metre reinforced-concrete space containing numerous drum-like galleries that display TeamLab's artworks. The shape of these galleries determined the building's exterior form.
A ceremonial staircase leads to a raised plaza and viewing platform on the roof, while a small plaza on the waterfront side of the building contains a waterfall-like feature integrated into the facade. Inside, visitors will experience a series of immersive artworks designed by TeamLab, known for its digital art displays, including a gallery in Tokyo.
TeamLab founder Toshiyuki Inoko stated, 'At teamLab Phenomena Abu Dhabi, visitors will be immersed into a world that organically changes and evolves through the participation and actions of the people in it, and it is precisely this physical experience that can expand our senses of value.'
The development of Saadiyat Island was initially announced in 2007, with plans for cultural buildings designed by Nouvel, Tadao Ando, and Zaha Hadid. While the latter two didn't come to fruition, the island now boasts a diverse range of cultural institutions, including the new TeamLab gallery, the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, and the other cultural anchors mentioned above.
Photography by Lizzie Crook.
