The French architect Jean Nouvel has defended his Louvre museum in Abu Dhabi, a massive domed complex that opens in November, from accusations it was built by exploited and abused migrant workers.

The building opens on 11 November, 10 years after the Paris museum signed an unprecedented £663m deal to allow Abu Dhabi to use its name for 30 years and borrow 300 works from its collection.

It features a 180-metre-diameter domed roof weighing 7,000 tonnes, the same as the Eiffel Tower, and 7,850 star shapes intended to create what Nouvel described as a “rain of light”.

In an interview as the finishing touches are put to the colossal construction, the architect dismissed accusations over exploited workers as an “old question” and insisted conditions for those building the museum were better than for some employed in Europe.



“At the beginning we saw the places where the workers live and their conditions to check that it was correctly done … They have the same conditions, even better conditions, than those I see in other countries,” he said. “We checked and it was fine. We saw no problem.”

A 2015 a Human Rights Watch report suggested migrants working on the Louvre museum and neighbouring Guggenheim, part of a £18bn “cultural hub” on Saadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi, were subjected to conditions amounting to forced labour including summary arrest and deportation if they complained.



The roof of the Louvre Abu Dhabi. Photograph: Sarah Al Agroobi/Abu Dhabi Tourism & Culture Authority

The Gulf state authorities say they have improved the rights and conditions of migrant workers, but critics such as the Gulf Labor Artist Coalition, formed by prominent international artists, say this is mostly for show.



Nouvel told the Anglo-American Press Association the museum had been designed around the local culture, climate and history as well as traditional Arabic patterns.



“I am very contextual. Architecture exists in function to its situation. A great museum for me is one that sits with the culture of the country in which it is created. I don’t think these things are interchangeable. I would not work in New York, Paris or London. Most architecture today is interchangeable; this is not.”



Nouvel said the dappled shadows created by the dome were reminders of “the souk or the light through the leaves of palm trees”.

The canopy partially covers more than 60 white buildings but is anchored at just four points, giving the impression it is floating. “It’s a neighbourhood under a kind of umbrella,” Nouvel said.



Hala Wardé, Nouvel’s partner, who has overseen the Louvre project, denied it was about bringing western culture to the Arab world, saying this was “not the spirit” of the collaboration.



“This has been about sharing culture on both sides and it has been extremely enriching on both sides,” Wardé said.



Nouvel added that the project was a “fantastic tool for the education of the younger generation” and was reminiscent of the “golden ages” enjoyed by the world’s historic cities.



“It’s like a cathedral, in that respect,” he said, adding that the Louvre Abu Dhabi was “a dialogue of civilisations … a question of universality and philosophy”.



“It’s about realising the qualities of civilisations that are not our own,” he said.



“An architect who is ambitious is not ambitious for himself but because the project is so important and the ambition is the strong will to leave the best testimony. I believe to create a museum is something very important for the evolution of conscience and the transmission of knowledge to the next generation.



“We don’t build for a person, we construct for people, for civilisations, for humanity.”