Under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, Jean Nouvel projected the National Museum of Qatar (NMoQ) - a new architectural masterpiece welcoming the world to an unparalleled immersive experience housed in a new architectural masterpiece.

The Museum’s winding, 1.5-kilometer gallery path is a journey through a series of unique, encompassing environments, each of which tells its part of the story of Qatar through a special combination of architectural space, music, poetry, oral histories, evocative aromas, archaeological and heritage objects, commissioned artworks, monumentally-scaled art films, and more. Together, the eleven permanent galleries take visitors from the formation of the Qatar peninsula millions of years ago to the nation’s exciting and diverse present. Giving voice to the nation’s rich heritage and culture and expressing the aspirations of its people, NMoQ will serve as a hub for discovery, creativity, and community engagement, providing diverse educational opportunities for Qatar and advancing the nation’s cultural vision on the global stage.

Jean Nouvel drew inspiration from the desert rose, a flower-like formation that occurs naturally in the Gulf region when minerals crystallize in the crumbly soil just below the surface of a shallow salt basin. Described by Nouvel as “the first architectural structure that nature itself creates,” the desert rose became the model for the Museum’s complex structure of large interlocking disks of different diameters and curvatures—some vertical and constituting supports, others horizontal and resting on other disks— which surround the historic Palace like a necklace. A central court, the Baraha, sits within the ring of galleries and serves as a gathering space for outdoor cultural events. On the outside, the Museum’s sand-colored concrete harmonizes with the desert environment, so that the building appears to grow out of the ground and be one with it. Inside, the structure of interlocking disks continues, creating an extraordinary variety of irregularly shaped volumes.

“To imagine a desert rose as a basis for design was a very advanced idea, even a utopian one. To construct a building with great curved disks, intersections, and cantilevered angles - the kind of shapes made by a desert rose - we had to meet enormous technical challenges... As a result, it is a total object: an experience that is at once architectural, spatial, and sensory, with spaces inside that exist nowhere else.” - Jean Nouvel

As in a lot of other museums, the circuit forms a loop. The complete tour takes about two hours and ends in discovery of the old Royal Palace, which has been restored. From certain points, you can access the Baraha. Following the time-honoured template, this is a central courtyard surrounded by buildings where travellers would come and unload their merchandise. The Baraha gives an idea of the scale of the Royal Palace. It’s a sheltered space, with the museum built around it.

Thanks to disks tilted at different angles, it also offers shade. This space can accommodate outdoor events, performances, theater pieces, events connected to the exhibitions. This structure evokes the local geography and, in keeping with the tradition of the place, ensures that it offers maximum protection from the sun.

NMoQ is organized in three chapters— “Beginnings,” “Life in Qatar,” and “The Modern History of Qatar”— presented in eleven galleries, which take visitors from the geological period long before the peninsula was inhabited through to the present day. Passing through the galleries, visitors are caught up in the experience of the formation of the Qatar peninsula and its natural habitat, the heritage of life in Al Barr (the desert) and on the coast, the political development of modern Qatar, the discovery of oil, and Qatar’s multifaceted relationships today with the larger world.

Oral history films, archival photographs, maps, texts, models, and digital learning stations establish the narrative, along with some of the most dazzling treasures of Qatar’s history and heritage. Along the museum path our story is told with a grand cinematic atmosphere created by a series of eight art films produced specifically for NMoQ by noted international filmmakers in association with the Doha Film Institute. These massive movie projections map the surfaces of the curving and flowing walls of the galleries, bathing the visitor in the emotional charge of our journey.

Address: Museum Park St - Doha, Qatar
www.qm.org.qa/en/project/national-museum-qatar
www.jeannouvel.com

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