Planned Cultural Centers in the 21st Century: 

A Study of Saadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

Culture is a critical aspect of human identity, and its exhibition is imperative to engage an exchange of identities to allow a better understanding of our world. This happens through various programs such as theatres, museums, galleries, and restaurants. However, it is imperative to be mindful of conscious investments in developing cultural centers in the 21st century; the ethical implications of realizing these projects (compared to naturally grown cultural centers) can be more damaging than their assets. Abu Dhabi is the capital of the UAE and its second-largest city. Domestically, it is a rival to Dubai as a destination. The Saadiyat Island project is a part of Abu Dhabi’s vision to become a regional cultural center. The Guggenheim Museum in Abu Dhabi is part of this larger project, where mixed cultural, commercial, and residential uses will house eight museums, the NYU-Abu Dhabi Campus, and a biennale exhibition space will be built (Embassy of the United Arab Emirates). The island is originally uninhabited, lying north of the city, but is being developed all around, with its cultural center located at its western point. The budget allocated to the whole project is about $27 billion, including a residential plan to house 125’000 residents (Fattah). 

Island of Culture

Ideally, an island of culture is a utopian concept that aims to bring together the aspects of culture together in an urban setting. However, it is more than just an expression of the arts and culture. Naturally, social and commercial infrastructure will be associated with the museums, hotels, and institutions. The project must be perceived beyond its current vision for the cultural center, as previously unused land is developed as a part of the “island of culture” project. 

Deontology would examine this project by looking at its urban landscape opportunities as a part of the duty that urban projects are expected to serve. Saadiyat Island and the Guggenheim (along with the Louvre-AD) offer exhibition space and opportunities for contemporary artists and urban experiences for the locals and tourists to enjoy. It adds to the tourist experience of Abu Dhabi (and to a lesser extent the tourist experience of the UAE in general) purposefully to counteract its deteriorating reputation for being heavily reliant on oil exports.

On the other hand, aretaics suggest that a project that loosens this dependency on a non-renewable resource and aims to develop the renewable tourism industry is a virtuous one. By rebranding Abu Dhabi and the UAE as tourist destinations, the market would be ready to experience a shift in revenue source once there is a depletion of oil. While this does not bode well for the oil industry, an ideally seamless transition in the longer-term would ensure a lesser shock due to this very change. 

The perspective of Utilitarianism would examine the further aftermath of the completion of the project for an ethical assessment, mainly the effects of the businesses that serve the visitors visiting the museums and staying in the hotels. These establishments’ upscale nature can attract upper-scale businesses, which could be socially daunting for visitors of a middle-class income during their visit. While the project shows promise of a Bilbao effect, it could turn into a cultural Disneyland for the rich (IAAC Blog) (Azis). This could be beneficial to attract more tourist traffic into Abu Dhabi, however can also cause a degree of gentrification. Because of the lack of history associated with the site, the secondary businesses become completely reliant on the primary venues’ audience, thus turning the “island of culture” into an “island of consumerism”.

Workers’ Abuse and Human Rights

While its intentions are global and fraternal, this project is a tenuous one due to the issues raised by the alleged human rights violations that take place regarding the migrant workers. While we think of employment opportunities as a healthy factor that increases living standards, recruiting firms’ opportunities are opportunistic and exploitative. The Gulf Cooperation Council Member States (GCC) ’s demographic status quo suffers from domestic labor scarcity and uses its abundance of capital to source labour internationally to meet the rapidly growing demand of new infrastructural development (Muhammad). As such, the migrant population at 23 million people makes up 42.5% of the GCC states’ population, compared to 54 million in the GCC (Amnesty International) (World Population Review). Many migrant workers come from places like the Philippines, Kenya, India, Nepal, etc., seeking better economic opportunities for their families (Amnesty International). Therefore, the labor market situation and demand for migrant labor forms an illegal trafficking industry based on supplying cheap labor to the GCC.

The project’s duty is not just to build but also to uphold social expectations of fair labor practices. It is also the case for the developers, the architect, construction firm, and recruiting firms that source the workers. In this case, workers are promised a better life in the GCC; these are false promises that entrap people in minimum wage jobs that overwork them for 15 hours per day, sometimes with restrictions on their freedom. This restriction is what the recruiting firms use as collateral for their high-risk investment (Nagaraj). However, when one of these entities engages in malpractice, the economic ties of mutual benefit then occur through exploiting the workers. Hiring a construction firm that utilizes illegal and abusive labor through recruiting firms that demand exorbitant fees from the workers is against the duty of any entity involved in a project, which makes this unethical. 

Conversely, workers’ abuse and exploitation for the recruiting firms’ gain are against virtue ethics. One must ask how ethical it is to profit off workers in unsafe environments, living in appalling conditions (Al Jazeera). The workers are not emigrating to the GCC because they want to, but their situation often requires them to, and often when workers do so, they have to take out loans for their migration (Amnesty International). Furthermore, imposing a significant fee becomes a stress factor that workers can not immediately pay off; the fact that workers already face harsh conditions is bad enough. Paying thousands of dollars in fees only traps the workers in debt (Ouroussoff). So upon examining these conditions, it could be described as a kidnapping situation with a demand for a ransom, keeping people captive until a sum has been paid; we usually associate ransoms with bandits, and it is an unvirtuous method of making money (Nagaraj).

The argument of Utilitarianism would rise from the further implications of imposing heavy recruitment fees that affect the workers’ standard of living. When the migrants have to take out loans to travel, pay a heavy recruitment fee during their employment, live work in unsafe conditions, and try to support their family back home with remittances, the quality of living of the migrants can only deteriorate. However, this (and all the other schools’ arguments) is based on timely payment of the workers’ salaries. Sometimes this is not the case, and workers are not paid their wages at all (Nagaraj). 

Monumental Architecture and its Source of Labour

Great architecture is certainly at a different level of relevance today than it was in the past. We still build monumental buildings today. However, technological breakthrough drives these projects rather than the historical race to be the largest/tallest building in the world (perhaps this is still relevant, but this was more pronounced in the past than it is now). When we also consider the source of labor for these buildings, we should also think of the purpose the building is built for. Ultimately, just as sculptures glorify their subjects, architecture presents itself as evidence of the histories of the designed, built, occupied, and serviced the building (Rowen).

Duty ethics suggest that architecture must fulfill the socially expected duties its program is ought to serve. The Pyramids of Giza would therefore be an unethical building, as it offers nothing for the people, at the expense of slave labor. Saadiyat Island as a cultural center is there to not only serve the community of Abu Dhabi, but also a global community as a part of the discourse of art and culture. Because the project would be performing the duty it ought to, deontology would justify the source of labor as a requirement to achieve the goal set by the project.

Virtue ethics would argue that the means that the project was completed is important as the function of the building, and both should be taken into account when making a value judgment. The Pyramids were built through slave labor to serve as the tomb of the Pharaoh; there is a builder and user difference that suggests exploitation of labor. This would be regarded as unethical, as one person benefits from the labor of thousands who do not have access to the building’s use. If we look at The Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, there is a certain virtue of making the arts available and accessible to the public in a centralised sense to promote cultural exchange. However, it is sadly possible that the workers that partook in the construction will not engage with the finished spaces. Perhaps this is where the virtue of the function meets the sin of abuse. As such, virtue ethics could regard the project as unethical for not considering the inclusion of the workers among the audience, while the projects market themselves as being universal. 

Lastly, Utilitarianism would suggest that great architecture needs to serve a social function to provide for its built community. The Pyramids then become highly problematic because it uses public resources for a static program, only to house a burial of one person. While so, the White House could be equally resource and labor-intensive, but because it is an administrative building for the state, it serves a societal, communal, and political function critical to the state. The stability of the state through foreign policy ensures a stable nation (this also addresses administrative luxury as more of a purpose of hospitality than pompousness). It therefore could be suggested that the ultimate goal of Saadiyat Island serves a greater breadth of people, by becoming a part of the global discussion of culture, despite its abuse of the workers. It even could be suggested that the workers are paying non-financial costs of the project. 

Conclusion

I believe this project is ambitious. However, we can also see the problems arising from thinking of a project in a void versus thinking about its gritty realism of its relationships to society, urbanism, and economy. I believe such utopian projects fall flat when they are realized and become not a plaza or environment for everyone, but just for the rich to enjoy. It is very much of a “Socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor” situation, where the exchange of intellectual ideas happens when one has access to capital to enter the venues of these exchanges (which is paradoxical in the first place). 

Moreover, the recruiters’ practice is very unethical. They seek to profit off workers who face significant stresses from society for being immigrants and the economic stress of working under minimum wage and balancing it with remittances sent to relatives back home. A demand for an employment fee, while working inhuman conditions prevents them from being. I believe, in our day and age, the demand for monumental buildings akin to antiquity has come to an end. Monumentality today is synonymous with the commons and as a space for the public. 

Bibliography

Embassy of the United Arab Emirates. “Saadiyat Island Home to Guggenheim and Louvre Museums.” UAE Embassy in Washington, DC, 2021, www.uae-embassy.org/news-media/saadiyat-island-home-guggenheim-and-louvre-museums. 

Fattah, Hassan. “Celebrity Architects Reveal a Daring Cultural Xanadu for the Arab World.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 1 Feb. 2007, www.nytimes.com/2007/02/01/arts/design/01isla.html. 

Ouroussoff, Nicolai. “Abu Dhabi Guggenheim Faces Protest.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 16 Mar. 2011, www.nytimes.com/2011/03/17/arts/design/guggenheim-threatened-with-boycott-over-abu-dhabi-project.html. 

Al Jazeera. “HRW: Louvre Abu Dhabi 'Tainted' by Worker Abuse.” Arts and Culture News | Al Jazeera, Al Jazeera, 10 Nov. 2017, www.aljazeera.com/features/2017/11/10/hrw-louvre-abu-dhabi-tainted-by-worker-abuse. 

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Lizzie Crook | 8 May 2019 Leave a comment. “Construction Set to Begin on Frank Gehry's Long-Awaited Guggenheim Abu Dhabi.” Dezeen, 8 May 2019, www.dezeen.com/2019/05/08/guggenheim-abu-dhabi-frank-gehry-architecture/. 

Nagaraj, Anuradha. “Trafficked, Exploited, Ransomed - Indian Workers in the Gulf Face New Test.” Reuters, Thomson Reuters, 30 Sept. 2019, www.reuters.com/article/us-india-gulf-labour/trafficked-exploited-ransomed-indian-workers-in-the-gulf-face-new-test-idUSKBN1WF03S. 

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“COVID-19 Makes Gulf Countries' Abuse of Migrant Workers Impossible to Ignore.” Amnesty International, www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2020/04/covid19-makes-gulf-countries-abuse-of-migrant-workers-impossible-to-ignore/. 

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Rowen, Jonah. “Architecture and Slavery.” PLATFORM, PLATFORM, 14 Sept. 2020, www.platformspace.net/home/architecture-and-slavery.

Cover image taken from: https://gregoryandjones.com/current-projects