Foster + Partners Ltd, one of Britain’s leading architectural firms,hasbeen declared the winner of the international design competition for the planned Sheikh Zayed National Museum.

The seven month competition process involved a two-stage anonymous submission format, with Foster + Partners being selected from the four short-listed submissions chosen to proceed to the second, presentation stage.

The museum will honour the legacy of the late Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan and is to be built in the Cultural District on Saadiyat Island. The concept presented by Foster + Partners was judged to have best met the requirement to deliver a unique and definingpublicmonumentforthefounder of the nation and a national museum for Abu Dhabi and the UAE.

When completed, it will have galleries individually devoted to UAE Heritage, Environment, The Transformation of the Emirates, Unity Through Leadership, and Education. The museum will also include an education centre, theatre, shops and a café and a visitor services area.

While in Abu Dhabi to present the Foster + Partners concept, Lord (Norman) Foster spoke of the need to deliver a building symbolic of the character and mission of the late Sheikh Zayed.

“A visitor needs to findthisanoasis– an area of calm in a bustling part of the Cultural District. The project calls for more than a museum, rather for a national monument to values which will evoke an element of contemplation and knowledge absorption and which, by definition,wouldthereforehaveagreaterspiritual element than the other projects in the district,” he said.

The international design competition jury was chaired by Zaki Nusseibeh, Advisor to the UAE Ministry of Presidential Affairs and Deputy Chairman of ADACH, with other jury members including Peter Wilson, Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s redevelopment project and the Head of Collections and former Director of Major Projects for London’s Tate Gallery.

The Sheikh Zayed National Museum will be a key asset in Saadiyat Island’s Cultural District, which will also include the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi modern and contemporary art museum, the Louvre Abu Dhabi universal museum, a performing arts centre, to be designed by British-based architect Zaha Hadid, a maritime museum and a park with pavilions devoted to culture and the arts. Together the museums will make up the world’s largest single cluster of premier cultural assets.

Back row – left to right: Richard Hinchliffe, CM, Paul Sellers, CM, David Barlow, CM, Alister MacMillan, CM, Bashir Siman, City of London Relations, Nick Benge, Treasurer, Anne McAdam, Secretary/Events Secretary, Julian Snell, Membership/Sponsorship

Front row – left to right: David Good, Speaker’s Secretary, Christine Bond, Office Affairs, Robert Schwarz, CM, Peter Michelmore, Chairman, Nick Cochrane-Dyet, Deputy Chairman, Margaret Holmes, Group Coordinator, Gordon Brown, CM (Ex-Officio)