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 vital fossils found on the positioning itself – the museum arrives with a brand new model id 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 id 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 sequence of varieties impressed by pure rock formations. He factors out that whereas many museum manufacturers should work round centuries-old buildings, this one was the other: “an thrilling problem to work on a museum in a very 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 international heavyweights.
Constructing a story round ‘The Energy of 5’
Mecanoo’s structure makes use of a repeated pentagonal geometry, which grew to become a foundational component for the model. As a substitute of taking the form at face worth, Wiedemann Lampe regarded for deeper conceptual floor.
Benji describes how the concept developed: “5 is all over the place round us, and it got here up repeatedly all through the method… 5 components, earth, water, hearth, air and house. 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 typically a sticking level with concepts like this.
The pentagon later grew to become 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 type, 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 typically navigate by way of structure, the staff selected as an alternative to create a brand that displays the constructing’s type. Experiments ranged from literal interpretations to abstracted shapes, till the suitable stage 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 superb, 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 id takes its cues from nature itself. Wiedemann Lampe approached the undertaking by means of 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 reveals 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 staff collaborated with Fontwerk to customize Pangea – a typeface named after the supercontinent. “Its options had a softness, roundness, but in addition 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 youngsters, vacationers and scientists alike
One of many model’s hardest challenges was scale, because it wanted to really feel rigorous sufficient for educational 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 staff used to modulate tone and expression relying on the viewers. Whereas scientific content material required readability and legibility, the id additionally needed to resonate on an emotional stage. “A museum model is a lot extra than simply schooling, analysis and campaigning,” Benji says. Inspiration and delight have been equally vital.
To that finish, the studio referenced leisure manufacturers that breathe by means of movement, comparable to BBC Two and Nationwide Geographic Channel, how these identities adapt fluidly to content material whereas sustaining coherence.
A system constructed to evolve
Even with its richness, the id needed to face 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 staff outlined particular color combos for legibility, launched 5 sort weights throughout each English and Arabic, and constructed a graphic system that may flex dramatically with out shedding 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 id, architectural symbolism and huge viewers attain, the brand new model positions the Pure Historical past Museum Abu Dhabi as a big 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 vital cultural locations, the museum – and its new id – provides one other distinctive voice to the area’s architectural and artistic dialog.
