Britain's Queen Elizabeth walks in front of her husband Prince Philip and alongside UAE's Vice President and Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum before the opening of the Sheikh Zayed National Museum in Abu Dhabi November 25,2010. - Photo by Reuters.

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates: Britain's Queen Elizabeth II officially unveiled British-designed plans Thursday for a new national museum in the United Arab Emirates that includes towering ''steel features.''

The ceremony in Abu Dhabi on Thursday came near the end of her first visit in more than 30 years to the UAE, which was a British protectorate before achieving statehood in 1971.

The plans for the new Sheik Zayed National Museum on Saadiyat Island off Abu Dhabi are dominated by five feather-shaped structures _ the highest more than 410 feet (125 meters) _ fanning out from the top of the museum.

The project is designed by renowned British architect Lord Norman Foster of Foster + Partners, which will join other iconic landmarks in Abu Dhabi including a wheel-shaped building and another with more than four times the slant of Italy's leaning tower of Pisa.

The new national museum will be part of a cultural complex that will include branches of the Guggenheim and Louvre museums.

The queen and her husband, Prince Philip, arrived Wednesday in Abu Dhabi. They are scheduled to travel to Oman later Thursday.