Meet the Director Bringing Abu Dhabi’s Natural History Museum to Life

Somewhere in Abu Dhabi, past the gleaming skyline and carefully curated cultural icons of Saadiyat Island, there exists a place where time stretches, shrinks, and bends in the most curious ways. Where dinosaurs stare you down, meteorites invite you to touch them, and the tiniest creature can feel as monumental as a skyscraper. Welcome to the newly opened Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi, where falling in love with life itself isn’t just encouraged—it’s essential.

Dr. Peter C. Kjærgaard, the museum’s internationally acclaimed director who has led some of Europe’s most respected natural history institutions, doesn’t mince words: “If you love something, you take better care of it.” And with that simple philosophy, every display, every gallery, every fragment of the planet’s story is designed not only to educate but to enchant.You begin in the cosmic dark, where fragments of the universe older than Earth itself wait for curious hands to brush against them. From there, the museum unfurls like a living storybook. Dinosaurs dominate their gallery, predators and prey locked in cinematic tension. And then the timeline marches forward: a four-tusked prehistoric elephant that once roamed Arabia, the gentle sweep of a blue whale skeleton, creatures both colossal and delicate, alive in their diversity today.

You don’t just walk through exhibits—you think of your place in the universal story, of how small, and yet how connected, you are. And perhaps, just perhaps, you leave the museum with a new kind of affection—not just for life in general, but for the fragile, irreplaceable world you actually live in.