Zayed National Museum

Centuries ago, the Bedouin navigated the vast expanses of the Arabian dunes guided by the flight of a loyal ally: the falcon. Through falconry, they captured small prey that allowed them to survive extreme climatic conditions. It was a vital alliance between man and nature for those nomads whom His Highness Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan persuaded in the mid-20th century to form a new nation: the United Arab Emirates (UAE). As the “First Falconer,” he insisted on bringing civilisation to the Bedouin, rather than the other way around.

Part of this mission—to reclaim a nation’s historical legacy and provide the physical and institutional infrastructure of a modern state that recognised the dignity of its people—involved launching the region’s first museum, the Al Ain Museum. It opened in 1971, the year of the UAE’s official founding. His Highness Sheikh Zayed was convinced that a nation without a past is a nation without a present or a future.

Fifty-four years later, a building evocative of a falcon’s wing reminds us of the founder and the origins of his people. This is the Zayed National Museum, where we have spent recent years developing the exhibition experience. 

Exploring three hundred thousand years of human occupation in the region, the museum turned to the expertise and vision of ACCIONA Cultura to give form to key elements of its collection.

Our work has been to push the boundaries of engineering: making the Sheikh’s horses gallop through the air; creating a steel and bronze tree to remind us of the resilience of desert flora; and restoring an original Chrysler Newport to take us back to the journey

where the leader united the Bedouin and their faithful falcons. In this feature article, we explore what happens when technical prowess meets cultural vision. 

While the falcon’s wings define the museum’s silhouette, the interior is presided over by another potent symbol: the Arabian horse. The mission was to breathe life back into Ratman and Segoria, the Sheikh’s most cherished horses.

To achieve this, we located the descendants of these two noble Arabians, using 3D scans to generate high-fidelity digital models.

From these moulds, 700kg replicas were fabricated in trabadillo, a traditional mineral composite evocative of marble. These were then hoisted to capture the majestic gallop of the animal that has been the Bedouin’s constant companion in the desert.

This sense of weightlessness is further enhanced by the installation of frameless glass showcases that appear to float in mid-air.

In the desert, the stars paint the celestial vault in all their splendour, guiding the traveller. Concluding the section honouring the Sheikh, a recreation of the sky captures the celestial alignment that presided over the leader’s final night. 

Titled Sterling Night, a ceiling featuring thousands of precision-perforated apertures filters light from projectors to faithfully replicate the stars on that occasion. A haze machine renders each beam of light visible, lending the space an intimate, reflective atmosphere that balances the vastness of the sky with human finitude.

In the UAE, the sky offers barely one hundred litres of rain per square metre annually—less than a tenth of the rainfall seen in countries like the United Kingdom. Yet, the parched desert expanses traversed by the Bedouin reveal profound resilience. Such is the case of the ghaf, a tree with medicinal qualities that also sustains desert wildlife.

ACCIONA Cultura, we sought a tree that would symbolise the essence of this species—a “Platonic” ideal. Following a journey through the dunes, we returned with a feature article’s worth of photography documenting dozens of specimens. The chosen tree was translated into a 3-D model and cast in bronze.

The space also hosts a poetic abstraction of the flora that thrives in such hostile conditions: a seven-metre-high stainless steel installation brought to life with tens of thousands of laser-cut leaves, connected to its branches via delicate metallic filaments.

The result is an ode to nature that takes centre stage within the gallery.

In each gallery, we developed a projection design ranging from superimposed imagery on the curved walls of the Sheikh’s horse room to monumental video walls at the journey’s end. 

These technical solutions enhance the storytelling, bringing the narrative closer to the visitors.

How is a country’s identity defined? What is it that unites us? These are undoubtedly questions the founder of the UAE explored during his primordial journey through the desert. His answers are found in the nation today, in the galleries of that first Al Ain Museum, and in this new space built in his honour.

Our museum work—which is also reflected in the new museum in Oman—is a narrative of light and matter about who we are, as citizens of a nation and as a species on this planet. 

From the project’s inception to its inauguration at the end of 2025, we have challenged the boundaries of engineering to create a physical manifestation of those dreams and that history: a vehicle for connection and transcendence.