The new Louvre museum in Abu Dhabi was finally finished at the end of last year at a cost of about $1.2 billion, about half of which was paid to the French for licensing the name. Built both above and below the waters of the Persian Gulf, the engineers and architects have presumably done a good job at making it watertight but a less good one at choosing materials for the outside that will stay clean, as the tide mark above the waterline shows. When I visited there was a small boat with four or five painters working at touching up the paint - it looks as if they might have a job for life....