Doha's fantastic art museum

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• Location: Qatar
• Holiday Type: City break

• by: greenspinach
• on: Thu 24 May 2012

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Doha is a city that is pretty much without any historical context, apart from a recreated souk. This Qatari city sprang to life in the mid-nineties when the erstwhile poor emirate discovered it was sitting on the world’s largest reserves of natural gas. The resulting boom has driven a surge of new architecture across the little emirate, especially in its capital Doha.

While there are new skyscrapers and glitzy malls in evidence everywhere, the star is undoubtedly the Museum of Islamic Art, a superb building resting on its own custom-built island in the southern tip of Doha’s bay, surrounded by the traditional pearl fishing boats that represent Qatar’s pre-gas heritage.

The Museum of Islamic Art is housed in a superb building designed by the Chinese-born American architect IM Pei, often referred to as the last great modernist. Pei was 91 when the museum was completed and he said that this was his last cultural building.

And what a building it is. Inspired by Turkish fortresses, Pei studied Islamic architecture and art across the centuries before focusing his design endeavour on the ninth-century Ahmad ibn Tulun Mosque in Cairo, a structure organized around a central court with a temple-like central fountain.  

The result is a powerful Cubist composition of square and octagonal blocks stacked atop one another and culminating in a central tower.  Inside, the galleries are organised around a towering atrium capped by a dome, which overlooks Doha’s nascent skyscraper skyline.  This is not another Dubai, built on ephemeral foundations, but the headliner in a considered effort to make Doha the cultural capital of the Islamic world.

Inside the gallery, the art, sculpture, rugs, textiles and ceramics are beautifully set off against the modernist lines of the building and the superb lighting. This is a museum of real class in every detail.  I particularly enjoyed a bronze Andalusian fountainhead in the shape of a doe, and an amazing rug from Hyderabad in India.

Getting to Doha was straightforward, with a direct flight on Qatar Airways, an emerging powerhouse in international airlines. It’s an easy city for travellers with everything signed in Arabic and English - even UK mains plugs are standard.

Overall, the Museum of Islamic Art is a wonderfully inspirational building in its own right, and a great setting for connecting with the art of the Middle and Near East. A top recommendation.

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