The National Museum of Qatar is definitely worth a visit
The desert rose is not just a flower. It’s also a cluster of gypsum crystal arranged like rose petals, which form when water infiltrates the rock and then evaporates. These “petals” inspired architect Jean Nouvel for his design of the National Museum of Qatar, an architectural feat which, I have no doubt, will over time become as iconic a building as is the Sydney Opera House.
The building is breathtaking: its 539 sand-coloured disc-shaped petals, which vary in diameter from 14 to 87 metres, appear to float in space; its infinitely thin slices of walls which, when viewed a few centimetres off to the right or left, reveal themselves to be convex; its floors which rise imperceptibly to become walls. Nothing is quite vertical. The discs intersect, crossing the interior, thereby creating geometric spaces.
It makes you wonder how anyone could have imagined this... let alone build it! Nouvel admitted that “taking the sand rose as a starting point became a very progressive, not to say utopian, idea. I speak of utopia because we confronted enormous technical challenges to build a structure 350 metres long, with its large curved discs, its intersections, its cantilevered elements – everything that evokes the desert rose.”
Nouvel explains that the museum tells three stories. “The first, which covers a fairly long period, is the history of the peninsula and its inhabitants. The second concerns lifestyles in the desert and coastal regions, and the pearl industry. The third is the spectacular acceleration which gave the kingdom – in just a few decades – the power and prosperity it has today.”
The challenge for the team of architects was also to integrate the Palace of Sheikh Abdullah bin Jassim Al-Thani (1871-1957), ruler of Qatar between 1913 and 1949. This palace, of significant patrimonial value for the peninsula, was not only the Sheikh’s home but also the seat of government for 25 years.
In 1975 the first National Museum of Qatar was installed in the palace. Today it is an integral part of the 21st century version of the museum. Nouvel’s building forms an irregular oval necklace with the old palace as its clasp. The vast interior courtyard recalls the shape of traditional Arab houses, and, like them, there are few windows; those that exist are buried in the recesses of the building, the sun never reaching them, which allows light in but keeps the heat out thus saving on air conditioning.
The museum opened to the public on 29th March 2019, and drew 450,000 visitors the first year. But then on 13th March 2020, the museum had to close because of the Covid-19 pandemic. It reopened its doors on 1st October 2020 but visitors (myself included of course) had to meet certain conditions: reserve your ticket online, have downloaded the Ehteraz health monitoring application (which had to show the green QR code indicating that you were neither in quarantine nor sick), and, naturally, you had to wear a mask.
Unfortunately I had to gallop around the 11 galleries in two hours. I didn’t have time to read the explanatory panels (which are badly lit and too small to be easily readable), nor to sit down and watch the films projected on the walls.
The journey begins with the first story: geology and nature. How was the peninsula formed? What wildlife lives there? I was surprised by the variety of the strikingly realistic stuffed animals. I also really liked the way the flora and marine life are displayed: each object is mounted on a rod attached either to Plexiglas, to a thin metal pole, or to a panel, so looks as though it’s just floating in front of you.
Some objects from prehistory precede the magnificent gallery where the second story begins: daily life in the desert, the clothes worn by the different tribes, gorgeous textiles such as carpets, cushions, saddles and camel blankets. Slices of nomadic lives are revealed in very beautiful films, especially the black and white ones, projected onto the walls. Then we move to the pearl fishermen who made Qatar's first fortune. A few select pieces of magnificent jewellery made with these treasures of nature seem to float against a black background.
The third story begins with a panel evoking life in the middle of the XXth century with its clocks, telephones, typewriters and vinyl records, before tackling the discovery of oil and gas, a subject which the clever museology has managed to make beautiful using lights and photos and videos, you guessed it, projected onto the walls.
Before leaving the premises stroll around the 900 m² lagoon and admire ALFA, the 114 fountain sculptures by Jean-Michel Othoniel. The silhouettes of black balls evoke Arabic calligraphy. Every half hour they transform into fountains, throwing out arabesques of water which echo the curves of the museum’s petals.
