National Museum of Qatar

From the southern end of Doha's Corniche, the National Museum of Qatar looks like a cluster of giant sand-coloured discs that have tumbled together at angles. The French architect Jean Nouvel took the form from the desert rose, a crystal formation of gypsum and sand found in Qatar's desert, and turned it into a building of interlocking curved planes that cast deep shadows and keep the interior protected from the sun. Contracted in 2011 and opened on 28 March 2019, it replaced an earlier national museum from 1975 and covers about 40,000 square metres on a site that reaches out towards the sea, linked to the shore by footbridges and a road bridge.

At the heart of the complex stands the restored early-20th-century palace once occupied by Sheikh Abdullah bin Jassim Al Thani, a former ruler of Qatar. The 1975 museum had already been built around it, and Nouvel's discs now curl around it in turn, so the old palace becomes the largest object in the collection. The galleries run in a continuous loop that tells the story of the peninsula in sequence: its natural history, Bedouin life in the desert, the history of its tribes, the emergence of the modern state and the transformation brought by oil. Outside, a lagoon displays traditional dhows and pearling equipment.

Around 8,000 objects are on show, from archaeological finds and textiles to jewellery, decorative arts and documents. The architecture itself has drawn as much attention as the displays, and the museum quickly became one of the defining buildings of the Gulf's recent wave of cultural projects.

Getting there

The museum stands on the Corniche in central Doha, Qatar's capital. The city's international gateway is Hamad International Airport (DOH), about 6 km to the east; it took over passenger traffic from the old Doha International Airport, which lies even closer, in 2014. National Museum station on the Gold Line of the Doha Metro serves the site.