Frank Gehry spent decades making buildings feel alive. His last major design, revealed just weeks ago, may be the most fitting conclusion to that pursuit. Dar al Funoon Abu Dhabi — Arabic for House of the Arts — is a performing arts complex on Saadiyat Island that looks less like a building and more like fabric caught mid-billow, its pale surfaces lifting and creasing as if pulled by an invisible current. Construction has begun, with the venue set to open in 2030.
Commissioned by Abu Dhabi’s Department of Culture and Tourism, the project will rise in the Saadiyat Marina District, just south of the island’s now-legendary cultural strip. Gehry’s own Guggenheim Abu Dhabi — a project decades in the making — is expected to open later this year on the same island. Dar al Funoon is the companion piece. Where the Guggenheim holds objects, this building will hold voices.
Designer: Frank Gehry
The architecture reads like a curtain in motion. Gehry Partners draped the complex in billowing metal and glass forms that gather loosely around the performance halls, with a transparency baked into the facade that lets passersby see inside. Rehearsals, arrivals, and the casual machinery of performance are all meant to be partially visible from the street — the backstage pressing gently into public view. It’s a detail that distinguishes Dar al Funoon from the sealed grandeur of most performing arts buildings. Here, the city is always watching, and the building seems to know it.
Inside, the scale is generous without being excessive. The main hall seats over 2,000 people around an orchestra pit built for 120 musicians — large enough for opera, ballet, and major touring productions. A 3,500-seat open-air amphitheater brings the program outside, while a 400-seat studio theatre and a 250-seat jazz venue serve the more intimate end of the calendar. Total capacity across the complex sits just above 6,000, supported by restaurants, retail, event spaces, and a rooftop terrace. The ambition is a 365-day-a-year institution — not a venue that opens for the season and goes dark.
Gehry passed away in December 2025 at 96. He never saw Guggenheim Abu Dhabi open. He won’t see Dar al Funoon open either. But both buildings will stand together on the same island, each expressing the same restless formal language — one for art you look at, one for art you hear. As final statements go, a performing arts center that looks like it’s already dancing is a quietly remarkable one.
Saadiyat Island was always going to be about culture. With Dar al Funoon, it’s finally about performance too.
