Abu Dhabi unveils Natural History Museum

Welcome back to Al-Monitor Dubai.

This week, we spotlight the opening of the Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi in November, a new Japanese hand roll bar, UAE art in Paris during the Asia Now fair, and the new opening of the world’s first Maison Margiela Residences on Palm Jumeirah at the end of this month.

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Happy reading,

Rebecca

P.S. Have feedback or tips on Dubai's culture scene? Send them my way at contactus@al-monitor.com.

1. Leading the week: Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi

A rendering of the National History Museum in Abu Dhabi when completed. (Courtesy of the Abu Dhabi Department of Culture and Tourism)

The UAE capital is about to get even more exciting as yet another museum — the Natural History Museum — opens next month, marking another significant cultural milestone for the Gulf nation. The museum will open its doors Nov. 22 in Saadiyat Cultural District on Saadiyat Island. It will feature headline attractions including dinosaurs, meteorites and a blue whale, along with exhibits spanning 13.8 billion years of life.

Designed by architecture firm Mecanno and covering 35,000 square meters, the building’s facade of various protruding white structures deliberately mirrors rock formations in an attempt to immerse visitors within the natural world. 

“The museum offers an immersive look at the story of life on Earth, framed for the first time through an Arabian lens, with the fauna, flora and geological history of the region forming a prominent part of the visitor journey,” said Mohamed Khalifa Al Mubarak, chairman of the Department of Culture and Tourism Abu Dhabi, in the institution’s opening statement.

Highlights from the museum’s collection include the skeleton of Stan, the world-renowned, 12-meter-long (40-foot-long) Tyrannosaurus rex — one of the best-preserved and most extensively studied fossils from the late Cretaceous period.  There’s also a 25-meter (82-foot) female blue whale skeleton and a specimen of the Murchison meteorite that landed and crashed into a shower of stones in Australia in 1969 — it provides clues on the early solar system. Also displayed are discoveries that originated in Abu Dhabi, such as an extinct genus of elephant known as the Stegotetrabelodon emeritus. 

Date: Nov. 22, 2025

Location: Saadiyat Cultural District, Abu Dhabi

Find more information here.

2. Word on the street: Kokoro

A view of dishes at Kokoro in Alserkal Avenue. (Courtesy of Kokoro)

Located in Alserkal Avenue and always buzzing with diners, Kokoro — the UAE’s first hand roll bar — has built somewhat of a cult following since its 2024 launch in Dubai. The Japanese-inspired concept will now open a second location on Saadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi in March 2026. What is wonderful about the eatery is not just its mouthwatering rolls but its organic ambiance known for its no-reservations, first-come-first serve and counter-seating format. Must-try rolls include signature options such as scallop with orange, spicy tuna and bluefin tuna. 

Location: Alserkal Avenue, Al Quoz, Dubai

Find more information here.

3. Dubai diary

A view of Pascal Hachem, Threaded Whole, 2025 piece of used furniture and wooden structure, dimension variable. (Courtesy of Pascal Hachem, with thanks to Alserkal)

• UAE and Saudi Arabia art at ASIA Now fair in Paris 

Cultural entities and artists from the UAE and Saudi Arabia present a strong showing at the 11th edition of the Asia NOW Paris Asian Art Fair. Dubai’s Alserkal Advisory presents a work by Lebanese artist Pascal Hachem titled “The Cut Line,” a performance centered on the idea of memory, and “Threaded Whole,” a 2025 series of used, wooden, dismantled furniture presented in a courtyard of Monnaie de Paris. The works revisit the idea of community and how memory is shaped through absence, everyday objects and experience, and also rupture. 

“To speak of Asia today is to step into a living field rather than a fixed map,” Arnaud Morand, head of arts at the French Agency for AlUla Development (AFALULA) and independent curator of the public program of West Asia at the fair, told Al-Monitor.

“In this frame, West Asia — routinely bundled into the Middle East and often treated as an appendix to other narratives — appears not as a periphery but as a set of fertile contact zones. Stepping aside from the usual rhetoric and topics of mega-infrastructure and mega-projects in the region, West Asia’s presence at Asia NOW redirects our gaze to the porous, the emergent and the in-between.” 

The West Asia public programs—featuring installations, commissioned artworks and loans —also include works by Saudi artists Muhannad Shono and Sarah Brahim, as well as a presentation by the Saudi Visual Art Commission featuring a work and performance by Saudi artist Ahaad Alamoudi. 

Date: Oct. 22-26

Location: Monnaie de Paris, Paris, France

Find more information here. 

• Louvre Abu Dhabi launches "Art Scents," fragrance-led art tours

The Louvre Abu Dhabi — in collaboration with Givaudan, a global leader in fine fragrances, will launch “Art in Scents,” a permanent experience that will launch at the end of October and invite visitors to literally smell art. This initiative transforms the museum’s permanent collection into a sensory journey through 10 bespoke fragrances, including a signature scent inspired by the Abu Dhabi museum. Each guided tour is accompanied by a specially produced “Art in Scents" booklet, with each page showcasing a unique fragrance inspired by a selected artwork from the museum’s collection.

Location: Louvre Abu Dhabi, Saadiyat Island, Abu Dhabi

Find more information here.

• “Poetry of Birds” exhibition at L’ECOLE, School of Jewelry Arts Dubai

This intricate exhibition presents exceptional jewels, precious objects and gouache drawings of birds by renowned jewelers, alongside pieces from UAE museums — all connected by the common thread of poetry. Inspired by Farid al-Din Attar’s “The Conference of the Birds” (circa 1117), the upcoming exhibition is conceived as a poetic journey, beginning with verses from renowned regional poets, followed by a dazzling display of jeweled bird species, including falcons.

Following previous editions of the exhibition in Paris and Tokyo, L’ÉCOLE, School of Jewelry Arts in Dubai will offer a different perspective focusing on the dialogue between 19th and 20th-century Western jewelry and Islamic arts. 

Date: November 6 to April 25, 2026

Location: L’ÉCOLE Middle East, Dubai Design District

Find more information here