Light and Heat in Qatar

Qatar vies with Lichtenstein for the position as the richest country in the world. Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, Emir of the State of Qatar, came to power through a bloodless coup in 1995. His accession was a turning point for the country. The Sheikh has proclaimed his intention to make his country a centre for culture and education. His second wife Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani has been active in helping him achieve this goal. In November 2008 The Museum of Islamic Art in Qatar was opened.

Corniche Doha, Qatar

It is 10.30 in the morning. The temperature outside is 44⁰C with the promise of increasing heat. The plane thuds on to the tarmac and hurtles to a stop in the richest city on earth.

The passengers, oil workers and their families returning from shopping trips to the Emirates, disembark and charge into the dust and heat haze, leaving the lone tourist alone to savour the moment of arrival in a new city.

Parkland facing Museum of Islamic Art Qatar

The hotel shuttle bus driver seems bemused, but enthusiastic, at the idea of the city as a tourist destination.

The trip to the hotel through a tangle of streets lined with crumbling concrete buildings is blocked intermittently by orange and white plastic barricades. Behind these barricades crowds of indentured Asian labourers shovel dirt out of ditches.

The first impression of the city is that the Qataris cannot be accused of flaunting their extraordinary wealth, although

Doha, Qatar’s capital, does have the usual collection of odd-shaped glass-clad high rise buildings and a dust shrouded tower to celebrate the 2006 Asian Games.

On the southern tip of the crescent-shaped bay, at the end of the corniche along which the working men are not allowed to walk, is the jewel in Qatar’s crown.

What a jewel it is. The first sign that true progress has come to the country. The next day, the driver points out the new education and medical precincts - further proof that money is being spent wisely in this country.


But it is the breathtakingly beautiful Qatar Museum for Islamic Arts that has placed Doha on the international map.

This building is I. M. Pei’s design and proof that the creative process burns deeply and strongly to the end of the artistic life.

Entrance to Museum of Islamic Art Doha

I.M. Pei has many great projects in his portfolio, but is probably best known for his controversial upgrading of the Louvre precinct in Paris which opened in 1989.

The story of I. M. Pei’s quest for ‘the essence of Islamic architecture’ is told and re-told in the Middle East. Cordoba in Spain, Fatehpur Sikri in India, the Great Mosque in Damascus, the fort at Sousse in Tunisia, were visited by the architect,but none of these inspired him to begin his design. Finally he came upon the simple lines of an ablution fountain in a Cairo mosque and from this drew the inspiration for the Doha museum.

I. M. Pei's Museum of Islamic Art Qatar

The museum is located on a man- made island sixty metres from shore. It is a stripped back, almost minimalist design which does evoke images of the ninth century ablutions fountain in the mosque of Ahmad ibn Tulun in Cairo. But the building is more than an evocation of early Islamic architecture.

Pei has embraced the harsh light and heat of the Arabian peninsula.  The sharply defined facets of the building enhance the interaction not just of light and shade, but of variations of light and shade and the interplay of watery reflections.

As the temperature soars beyond 48 degrees, the water shimmers beneath heat waves, and the building invites the traveller to enter into a promise of a vast cool interior.

Museum of Islamic Art Qatar

Observer
16 August 2010
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