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Whilst the Musée du Louvre is located in Paris, the Guggenheim Museum is located in New York. In the future, these will, however, not be the only locations. Museums bearing these same names, which are steeped in tradition, are currently also under construction on the seafront of Saadiyat Island, off the coast of Abu Dhabi. They are intended to further strengthen the cultural life of the aspiring Persion Gulf cities and create a world-class cultural destination attracting visitors from around the world. The deep excavations and the entire foundation construction works were carried out by BAUER Spezialtiefbau GmbH, based in the Bavarian town of Schrobenhausen, together with its United Arab Emirates subsidiary company.
The model of the Guggenheim Museum exudes considerably more dynamics than the rather tranquil, seemingly floating structure of the Louvre. The foundation construction works for the Guggenheim Museum were awarded to Bauer International Abu Dhabi. Initially, measures were required to protect a coastal strip of the island against the erosion of localised sandy deposits with shell inclusions at a depth of 7 m. Between November 2009 and May 2010, a permanent slurry cut-off wall and a temporary cut-off wall with a combined length of around 2000 m were constructed under the overall control of BAUER International Abu Dhabi together with joint venture partner Spie Batignolles. A BAUER BC 40 trench cutter and a BAUER BG 28 rotary drilling rig, were deployed to carry out this work, together with numerous service cranes.
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Louvre and Guggenheim 
Situated directly on the seafront of the Arabian Gulf in Abu Dhabi’s Saadiyat Island Cultural District, both these exclusive buildings are being developed in highly imaginative 21st-century architecture designed by internationally renowned practices. Whilst the architects for the Louvre are Ateliers Jean Nouvel of Paris, the architectural design of the Guggenheim Museum has been created by Frank Gery of Los Angeles. The construction of both museums is managed by Abu Dhabi’s Tourism Development & Investment Company (TDIC).
The two buildings are sited in close proximity to each other on a large reclaimed area of gravel fill in the tidal zone on the seaward side of Saadiyat Island. These enabling works made the construction of the two excavation pits possible. They were executed using the MIP process. The Mixed-in-Place technique uses the soil as construction material for the retaining walls. On the 24 000 m³ site of the Louvre, which consist of a circular structure topped by a 180 m diameter shallow cupola, BAUER carried out all specialized foundation works. Within a period of eight months 1250 linear meters of MIP wall and 170 linear meters of secant pile retaining wall were constructed, together with 503 000 m3 of bulk excavation for the basement, vibrocompaction, soundings and dewatering. The drilling operations were carried out with various types of BAUER rotary drilling rigs.
