Inside Abu Dhabi's newly opened National History Museum

Abu Dhabi opened a world-class Natural History Museum, in December 2025 as the spectacular Zayed National Museum—an immersive art museum.

Located in the heart of the Saadiyat Cultural District in Abu Dhabi, the national museum of the UAE celebrates the rich culture, history, and in-depth stories of its people from ancient times to modern day.

According to the architects and builders of the museum, it unveils the story of the UAE’s Founding Father, the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, whose enduring example still guides the nation and its people today.

Through its exhibitions, research and public programmes, Zayed National Museum explores the origins of the values that Sheikh Zayed embodied and their lasting influence on the country he founded.

Zayed National Museum aims to take visitors through the history of the United Arab Emirates, back to a 300,000-year-old stone tool found at Jebel Hafit in Al Ain.

With an authentic form of storytelling, the objects in national history museum galleries link the ancient past with people’s living traditions.

Moreover, behind each and every object there is a story about who made it, how it was used in ancient times, and how it was passed down through generations.

The objects placed in the museums also reveal stories of ancient trade and innovation through the ages and how the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan united the emirates in modern times.

Main highlight of the U.A.E National History Museum

Designed for the UAE’s Department of Culture and Tourism, the job was awarded to Foster & Partners in 2007 with construction starting the following year but pausing in 2012, only restarting six years later.

The museum is named after Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the founding father of the United Arab Emirates, and features exhibitions of artefacts charting the history of the Middle Eastern country from its earliest evidence of human habitation to the modern day

The museum’s most prominent feature is the 123 m-tall ‘wings,’ designed as part of the museum’s ventilation strategy, which rise from the building’s roof that also contains glazed openings to channel natural light into its galleries.

The lightweight structures, which were inspired by Zayed’s love of falconry, contain air vents that draw hot air from the atrium spaces below, which in turn pull up cooled air from pipes buried deep below the desert floor.

Additionally, the museum contains six permanent galleries, four of which are suspended in ‘pods’ above the central atrium area and linked by sculptural spiral staircases.

Mohammed Khalifa Al Mubarak, chairman of the Department of Culture and Tourism, said the museum “gives our nation’s story a permanent home.”

Chairman of the Department of Culture and Tourism in Abu Dhabi, Mohamed Khalifa Al Mubarak, said the museums are an increasing draw for visitors; more importantly they are intended as educational centers.

They project a message of UAE’S vision of itself and its place in the world at a time the country is playing a growing role in the Middle East and beyond.

He said that tourists do visit the museums, but their sole purpose is to continuously educate the masses that live here in the UAE and play a role in their growth.

“The land of the Emirates has always been a bridge between East and West. So a lot of these museums are a metaphor of the land itself, and that is why we are doing this.”