The immersive and experiential National Museum of Qatar tells the story of the people and the land of Qatar from earliest times to today, giving voice to the country’s rich heritage. The National Museum embraces, as its centerpiece, the restored historic Palace of Sheikh Abdullah bin Jassim Al Thani (1880-1957), son of the founder of modern Qatar: a building that in former times was both the home of the Royal Family and the seat of government and was subsequently the site of the original National Museum.
The Architecture of the Desert Rose
Jean Nouvel’s new 52,000-square-meter building echoes the geography of Qatar while evoking the history and culture of the nation.
“Qatar has a deep rapport with the desert, with its flora and fauna, its nomadic people, its long traditions. To fuse these contrasting stories, I needed a symbolic element. Eventually, I remembered the phenomenon of the desert rose: crystalline forms, like miniature architectural events, that emerge from the ground through the work of wind, salt water, and sand. The Museum that developed from this idea, with its great curved disks, intersections, and cantilevered angles, is a totality, at once architectural, spatial, and sensory.” Jean Nouvel. Source by and photos Courtesy CLAUDINE COLIN COMMUNICATION.