Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II is officially launching a British-designed project to build a new national museum in the United Arab Emirates.
The ceremony in Abu Dhabi on Thursday comes near the end of her first visit in more than 30 years to the UAE, which was a British protectorate before achieving statehood in 1971.
The queen unveiled the design for the new Sheikh Zayed National Museum on Saadiyat Island off Abu Dhabi. The project is designed by British architects and backed by the British Museum.
The museum will be part of a cultural complex that will include branches of the Guggenheim and Louvre museums.
The queen and her husband, Prince Philip, arrived Wednesday in Abu Dhabi. They are scheduled to travel to Oman later Thursday.
