Guggenheim Abu Dhabi opens on 11 December, with tickets at Dh70
Frank Gehry's Guggenheim Abu Dhabi opens on Saadiyat Island on Friday 11 December. Adult tickets cost Dh70, and entry is free for under-18s, students in the UAE and citizens and residents aged 60 and over.
The Guggenheim's long-awaited museum in Abu Dhabi now has five weeks to go. The Department of Culture and Tourism Abu Dhabi has set the public opening for Friday 11 December 2026, and tickets are already on sale on the museum's own website, guggenheimabudhabi.ae.
The building is the last major design by Frank Gehry, the Pritzker Prize-winning architect behind the Guggenheim in Bilbao. It sits on the water in the Saadiyat Cultural District, next to Louvre Abu Dhabi, Zayed National Museum, the Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi and teamLab Phenomena. Ten cones rise up to 88 metres above it: nine are wrapped in stainless steel mesh and one in onyx and glass, and they shade and ventilate the building as well as shaping its outline.
Inside there are 30 galleries around a central atrium, with 11,600 square metres of indoor gallery space and another 23,000 square metres of outdoor exhibition areas. The whole site covers 80,000 square metres, which makes it the largest of the Guggenheim's museums, alongside New York, Venice and Bilbao.
The collection has been built since 2009 and covers modern and contemporary art from 1960 to today. DCT Abu Dhabi says it is centred on the region but takes in work from every continent, from painting and sculpture to installation, photography, film and new media. Rather than walking through art history in date order, visitors move between themed galleries: Abstractions, Popular Culture, Land, Language and Storytelling. The opening exhibitions and newly commissioned works have not been named in full yet; the museum says more will follow before the doors open.
For Dubai residents, it is a little over an hour's drive to Saadiyat, and the museum joins the Louvre and Zayed National Museum in making the district a full day out.
General admission is Dh70. Entry is free for visitors under 18, for students in the UAE, and for UAE citizens and residents aged 60 and over, so bring an Emirates ID or student card. Tickets are sold on guggenheimabudhabi.ae, and booking a time ahead is the safer choice for the opening weekend. Opening hours have not been announced yet.