The Pure Historical past Museum Abu Dhabi formally opened to the general public on Saturday, marking a serious addition to the fast-growing Saadiyat Cultural District. Alongside its spectacular assortment – which incorporates important fossils found on the positioning itself – the museum arrives with a brand new model identification by Wiedemann Lampe, created to match the ambition of Mecanoo’s putting new constructing.
The studio was introduced in early, tasked with shaping all the things from visible identification and narrative to naming, wayfinding and a full digital and bodily system. With 4 new museums opening in Abu Dhabi this yr alone, the strain to create one thing immediately recognisable was actual.
Wiedemann Lampe co-founder and govt inventive director Benji Wiedemann explains how step one was understanding the constructing itself, which rises from the bottom in a collection of kinds impressed by pure rock formations. He factors out that whereas many museum manufacturers should work round centuries-old buildings, this one was the alternative: “an thrilling problem to work on a museum in a totally new constructing”.
Saadiyat Island is turning into a cultural epicentre, residence to the Louvre Abu Dhabi, the soon-to-complete Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, and the Abrahamic Household Home. The Pure Historical past Museum sits inside this architectural context, so any model needed to maintain its personal amongst world heavyweights.
Constructing a story round ‘The Energy of 5’
Mecanoo’s structure makes use of a repeated pentagonal geometry, which turned a foundational component for the model. As an alternative of taking the form at face worth, Wiedemann Lampe regarded for deeper conceptual floor.
Benji describes how the thought advanced: “5 is in every single place round us, and it got here up many times all through the method… 5 components, earth, water, hearth, air and area. 5 senses. 5 fingers and 5 toes. And 5 phrases: Pure Historical past Museum Abu Dhabi. It felt proper”.
From this, the studio developed the narrative of Energy of 5, a thematic thread that connects the structure with organic buildings, pure symmetry, and the museum’s mission. It is distinctive and recognisable, and it carries the correct amount of science with out being chilly. It is also not too summary, which is usually a sticking level with concepts like this.
The pentagon later turned the premise for a graphic system used to border imagery, create thresholds, and maintain content material throughout print, digital and spatial functions. In its easiest kind, it acts as a keyline, whereas, in additional expressive moments, it turns into a dimensional aperture, providing a window into deep time, speculative futures, or the constructing’s personal sculptural geometry.
A brand formed by the panorama
The museum’s bilingual nature meant a typographic brand did not make sense. In a district the place guests usually navigate through structure, the group selected as a substitute to create a brand that displays the constructing’s kind. Experiments ranged from literal interpretations to abstracted shapes, till the fitting degree of recognisability emerged and the ultimate mark echoes the extruded contours of Mecanoo’s construction with out turning into a diagram of it.
Benji notes that the road between literal and symbolic was deliberately fantastic, leading to a brand that feels grounded in place however nonetheless works throughout audiences and contexts, from college worksheets to large-scale exterior signage.
Designing with biomorphism and biomimicry
If the structure gave the model its geometric backbone, the broader identification takes its cues from nature itself. Wiedemann Lampe approached the challenge by each biomorphism and biomimicry, borrowing visible language from the pure world however observing how nature operates.
“The entire model was bioinspired,” Benji explains. Biomorphism knowledgeable the overarching narrative, whereas biomimicry formed the model’s behaviour. Pure variation exhibits up within the beneficiant color palette, which spans greater than 20 hues drawn from minerals, skies, crops and geological strata.
Typography, too, wanted to hold this steadiness of robustness and softness, so the group collaborated with Fontwerk to customize Pangea – a typeface named after the supercontinent. “Its options had a softness, roundness, but additionally with a slight edge, and it had Arabic baked into it,” Benji says. Fontwerk then added architectural cuts and tailored characters just like the comma and apostrophe to tie the sort straight into the pentagonal motif.
Making it work for kids, vacationers and scientists alike
One of many model’s hardest challenges was scale, because it wanted to really feel rigorous sufficient for tutorial contexts, partaking sufficient for youthful guests, and welcoming sufficient for the thousands and thousands of vacationers who go to Abu Dhabi annually.
The answer got here within the type of three guiding pillars – educate, entertain, empower – which the group used to modulate tone and expression relying on the viewers. Whereas scientific content material required readability and legibility, the identification additionally needed to resonate on an emotional degree. “A museum model is a lot extra than simply schooling, analysis and campaigning,” Benji says. Inspiration and delight have been equally essential.
To that finish, the studio referenced leisure manufacturers that breathe by movement, similar to BBC Two and Nationwide Geographic Channel, taking a look at how these identities adapt fluidly to content material whereas sustaining coherence.
A system constructed to evolve
Even with its richness, the identification needed to stand up to heavy sensible calls for. Wayfinding, exhibition graphics, merchandise, promotional campaigns and digital touchpoints all depend on a secure algorithm.
To maintain issues coherent, the group outlined particular color mixtures for legibility, launched 5 sort weights throughout each English and Arabic, and constructed a graphic system that may flex dramatically with out dropping its core form.
“The model is ever-changing, like nature, evolving and adapting,” Benji says. Designed to develop alongside the museum, it carries the identical expressive potential because the constructing itself.
A brand new landmark
With its bio-inspired identification, architectural symbolism and broad viewers attain, the brand new model positions the Pure Historical past Museum Abu Dhabi as a major addition to the worldwide household of pure historical past establishments. It not solely displays the panorama it rises from however folds in native narratives, scientific ambition and a future-facing design language.
As Saadiyat Island continues its transformation into one of many world’s most essential cultural locations, the museum – and its new identification – provides one other distinctive voice to the area’s architectural and artistic dialog.
