Built on the spot where the UAE was signed into existence in 1971, in a building shaped like the parchment they signed.
On 2 December 1971, at Union House on this site, the rulers of six emirates signed the document that created the United Arab Emirates. Ras Al Khaimah joined two months later, making seven.
The context matters: Britain had announced in 1968 that it would withdraw its forces from east of Suez by the end of 1971, ending the treaty arrangements that had governed the Trucial States since the nineteenth century. The rulers had three years to decide what to do. Bahrain and Qatar went their own way; the seven did not.
The building
Moriyama and Teshima designed it, opened in 2016, and the form is literal: the roof curves like a sheet of parchment, and seven columns slope up in front of it, one for each emirate, representing the pens used to sign.
Most of the museum is underground, so that the historic Union House and the flagpole remain the visible elements on the site.
Inside
Eight permanent pavilions covering the years from the 1960s to the union and after: the discovery of oil, the British withdrawal, the negotiations, the constitution, and the founding rulers, with Sheikh Zayed of Abu Dhabi and Sheikh Rashid of Dubai as the central figures.
There are original documents, the rulers’ passports, film of the signing, and a copy of the constitution. The interactive material is good and the labelling is thorough in Arabic and English.
It is an official national narrative and it reads as one — this is the state telling its own founding story, and it is not a critical history. Taken as that, it is well made and genuinely informative, and it is the best explanation available of how the country came to exist at all.
Union House
The original building, restored, stands in the grounds. The flag raised on 2 December 1971 flew from the mast outside, and the enormous flagpole there now is a later addition.
Practicalities
Tickets are inexpensive. Allow two hours. It is air-conditioned throughout and works well in summer.
Closed on some days; check current hours. There is a café and a shop.
Combining it with the Jumeirah Mosque tour, a short taxi away, makes a coherent morning about the country rather than the property development.
More Museums
Museum of the Future
A torus of Arabic calligraphy with no columns and no windows, holding an exhibition that is closer to immersive theatre than a museum.
Al Shindagha Museum
A string of restored merchant houses on the Creek telling the pearling story properly, and the best history museum in the emirate.
Al Fahidi Fort and Dubai Museum
The oldest building in Dubai, from 1787, which housed the city museum for fifty years and has been closed for restoration.