Culture News

Dubai's Museum of the Future will shut in mid-September to replace every main exhibit

Dubai's Museum of the Future, the silver ring-shaped building on Sheikh Zayed Road that opened in February 2022, will close to visitors in mid-September 2026 for the first complete overhaul of its exhibitions, The National and Gulf News reported on July 15. A new visitor journey is due in the first quarter of 2027, around the museum's fifth anniversary.

According to The National, every major exhibition and all main experiences will be replaced. The outgoing displays include the OSS Hope space station simulation, the Heal Institute's Amazon rainforest and DNA library, the technology-free Al Waha wellness space, Tomorrow Today and Future Heroes, the children's area. The museum told the paper it had received more than 1,000 public suggestions through social media, and that the rebuild was always part of its operating model.

Exhibitions should “keep pace with scientific, technological and societal developments” — a museum representative, via The National

Gulf News framed the closure as a deliberate choice to keep reinventing the galleries instead of running permanent displays. It said the current shows on artificial intelligence, space, climate, health and sustainability stay open until the closure, and that the new attractions will draw on ideas sent in by people around the world.

How each outlet framed it

• The National — what disappears: a list of the exhibits being retired, plus the museum's own reasoning.
• Gulf News — the philosophy: a museum that rebuilds itself, with the current galleries open until the switch.

What we don't know yet: Neither outlet gives an exact closing day, ticket arrangements for the gap, or visitor figures; Gulf News says only that the museum has drawn “millions of visitors”. Details of the new exhibitions were promised “in coming months”.