The Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi has begun work on Dar al Funoon Abu Dhabi, a large-scale venue intended to broaden the emirate’s year-round cultural offer.
The Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi (DCT Abu Dhabi) announced on June 25, 2026, that works had commenced on Dar al Funoon Abu Dhabi, a performing arts institution planned for Saadiyat Island. The venue is set to open in 2030 and is intended to host a broad range of performances, from ballet and opera to theatre and other live events. The announcement places the project within Abu Dhabi’s wider investment in cultural infrastructure and international artistic exchange.
Dar al Funoon Abu Dhabi is being developed as a permanent home for performances at international level, with programming designed to bring together established and emerging artists from the UAE, the wider region and elsewhere. DCT Abu Dhabi said the institution would offer 365 days and nights of events, performances and activities. Its location near the Saadiyat Cultural District connects the project to an area already associated with Abu Dhabi’s cultural development.
The planned complex will contain several performance spaces, including a multipurpose hall with more than 2,000 seats, a 3,500-seat open-air amphitheatre, a 400-seat studio theatre and a 250-seat jazz venue. Together, those spaces will provide capacity for more than 6,000 people, while allowing the institution to accommodate productions at different scales, from intimate presentations to major performances. The release also described plans for artistic residencies, touring partnerships and co-productions with international performing arts companies.
Commissioned by DCT Abu Dhabi and designed by the late architect Frank Gehry, the institution is presented by the department as both a venue and a platform for cultural collaboration. Its proposed billowing, fabric-like exterior and transparent façade are intended to express the relationship between the building, public access and performance. DCT Abu Dhabi also linked the project to Abu Dhabi’s existing cultural activity, including its designation as a UNESCO Creative City of Music, the annual Abu Dhabi Festival and local performing arts education initiatives.
The department said Dar al Funoon Abu Dhabi is expected to generate community and socio-economic benefits alongside its artistic role, including jobs, local skills development, cultural tourism and support for the creative economy. Those outcomes remain projections attached to a project scheduled to open in 2030, rather than results reported at the announcement. For DCT Abu Dhabi, the institution therefore represents a long-term expansion of the emirate’s cultural infrastructure, with its eventual impact dependent on how the planned programme and partnerships develop.
