It’s official: the Louvre Abu Dhabi will open at the end of 2016, a full year later than previously announced and a decade after the contract was signed for the €1bn project on Saadiyat Island. The delay was confirmed on Tuesday, June 16, during a press briefing at the Louvre by the museum’s president, Jean-Luc Martinez.

The Gulf outpost had stalled for almost six years before the project was rescued by Martinez.