Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) has signed an agreement with the Dubai Culture & Arts Authority towards transforming six of the Dubai Metro stations into museums showcasing artistic and cultural works with a project cost of Dh184 million ($50 million).

RTA also signed another MoU, which provides for decorating bridges and underpasses in Dubai in a bid to add artistic touches to the streets.

The MoU aims at transforming the Dubai Metro Stations, which attract more than 137 million visitors per annum, into galleries exhibiting artistic, cultural and creative works a to showcase artistic and cultural works and innovations.

The initiative will also result in bringing artistic, cultural, aesthetic and historical artifacts & creative works to the attention of the public, rather than bringing the public to them, rendering them an enjoyable part of the daily life of commuters, thus transforming the metro stations into cultural, artistic and historical hubs.

The MoU was signed on behalf of the Dubai Culture by Abdul Rahman Al Owais, Minister of Health and chairman of the Dubai Culture & Arts Authority, and on behalf of the RTA by Mattar Al Tayer, chairman of the Board and executive director of the RTA.

The RTA will attend to providing and preparing the infrastructure needed for stations, cater to interior designs and contents, put a tender for interior design and contents besides marketing and promoting the project.

The Dubai Culture & Arts Authority will figure out the required infrastructure in terms of power, ventilation, information systems, interior design, gallery contents, tender documents for interior design and developing gallery contents, in addition to identifying and preparing artworks, and setting a plan for modernizing artifacts & gallery contents.

The meeting agreed to the theme and pattern of gallery in each station. Accordingly Burjuman Station will be transformed into music and art gallery, Emirates Towers Station will be transformed into Islamic decorations & manuscripts, Financial Center Station will be transformed into an Islamic Numismatics (coins) Gallery, Burj Khalifa / Dubai Mall Station will be transformed into an e-library, and the Business Bay Station will be transformed into a photo gallery. Additionally, Noor Bank Station will play host to a Museum of Contemporary Art.

It was also agreed to equip the museums with the latest technologies as well as smart & interactive applications in line with the Smart Dubai initiative. There will also be a variety of artistic performances including music synchronized with the movement of the metro, light show on the roofs of stations, 3-D shows at stations, interactive screens via smartphones in all stations, and wrapping metro carriages using e-paper technology.

"The project will be particularly appealing to Dubai Metro riders and add an aesthetic dimension to Dubai Metro stations which are mainly designed to be unique architectural showpiece characterizing Dubai Metro, contributing to achieving RTA's strategic objectives of increasing the number of mass transit ridership,” said Al Tayer.

“The initiative also contributes to communicating the sublime mission of Art, as an international language of communication between civilizations and peoples, given that the UAE in general and Dubai in particular embrace more than 200 nationalities,” he added. – TradeArabia News Service