Words by Allegra Salvadori
When the vaulted ceiling of Zayed International Airport’s Terminal 1 first caught the desert light in 1982, it embodied a nation looking skyward. Designed by French architect Paul Andreu—the visionary behind Paris Charles de Gaulle—the terminal became an emblem of Arabian modernism, its tent-like mosaic roof and sweeping glass façade translating geometry and spirit into structure.
Four decades later, the building awakens once more. From 19 to 22 November 2025, NOMAD—the itinerant fair where collectible design meets architecture—will make its Middle Eastern debut, transforming this dormant landmark into an evocative stage where movement, memory, and imagination converge.
Since its inception, NOMAD, co-founded and directed by the Canadian-Italian architect and curator Nicolas Bellavance-Lecompte, has rejected the idea of the traditional design fair. Instead, it travels the world—Capri, St. Moritz, Monaco, Venice, soon the Hamptons—creating site-specific encounters that dissolve the boundaries between exhibition, architecture, and experience. Each edition unfolds like a dialogue between artworks and the spaces that host them, revealing how design can inhabit a place rather than simply occupy it. Bellavance-Lecompte, who previously founded Carwan Gallery, the first contemporary design gallery in the Middle East, and served as Artistic Director of Milan’s Fonderia Artistica Battaglia, brings to NOMAD the curatorial precision of an architect who thinks in atmospheres as much as in forms.
For Abu Dhabi, NOMAD has chosen not just a venue but a metaphor: a building that once connected the world now becomes a site for re-connection through culture. The fair will breathe new life into Andreu’s futuristic terminal with a choreography of light, glass, and reflection. Inside its arched walkways and circular lounges, leading galleries such as Nilufar (Milan), Galerie BSL (Paris), Gallery FUMI (London), Stefanidou Tsoukala (Athens), Le Lab (Cairo), Gem Alf (Istanbul), Bardo Collections (Tunis), Mondavilli Scagliola (Milan), Galerie Melissa Paul (London), Robilant + Voena (London, Milan, Paris, New York), Brun Fine Arts (Milan, Florence, London), Parsa (Tehran, Paris), and Galerie Gastou (Paris) will present works that oscillate between heritage and experimentation.
Making its debut at NOMAD, AP Room (Dubai) will present The Roots by Dubai-based Iranian artist Roham Shamekh—a sculptural collection of stools and benches with organic, root-like forms reflecting on collective human experience.
Special projects by Irthi Contemporary Crafts Council, Studio Swine, SUPER LOOP, Vagujhelyi, and A2Z Jewellery will expand the conversation into craftsmanship, cinema, and ritual. Among them, Bottega Veneta’s “Destinations” stands as a luminous gesture: eight designers from North Africa and the Middle East reinterpret the house’s iconic Intrecciato weave through local materials and ancestral techniques, curated by Rana Beiruti as a journey through place, identity, and memory.
The timing is symbolic. As Abu Dhabi Art returns to the capital and the Saadiyat Cultural District continues to grow with the Louvre Abu Dhabi and the forthcoming Guggenheim, the city asserts itself as one of the most compelling cultural epicenters of the twenty-first century. An hour away, Dubai’s restless design energy completes the rhythm. In this landscape of ambition and renewal, NOMAD does not arrive as a guest but as a catalyst—an activation of space, spirit, and dialogue.
Bellavance-Lecompte often describes NOMAD as “a choreography of encounters.” Indeed, beyond its exhibitions, the fair’s intimate VIP program opens private homes, hosts architect-led tours, and convenes conversations with the thinkers shaping today’s design discourse. What emerges is less a commercial platform than a global circle—a network of collectors, curators, and creators who meet not for spectacle but for exchange.
At Terminal 1, that exchange acquires a deeper resonance. The architecture that once framed departures now hosts arrivals of a different kind: ideas, collaborations, possibilities. In reviving a monument of Arabian modernism, NOMAD transforms it into a living organism again—proof that design, at its most thoughtful, can turn memory into momentum, and history into horizon.
NOMAD Abu Dhabi runs 19–22 November 2025 at Terminal 1, Zayed International Airport.
Cover photo credits: NOMAD Capri 2022, Certosa di San Giacomo, Parodi + Sorgetti + Floriani, Courtesy of NOMAD.
