Compared to other American or European capitals, Doha, the country’s capital, is a young city, barely 200 years old. At some point in its history, its wealth was linked to the extraction and trade of pearls and, more recently, to oil activity in a desert environment and extreme weather. Today, it has about 2.5 million inhabitants, who go about their daily lives among buildings that could well be the setting for one of the stories of Arabian Nights –like the Souq Waqif–, constructions that shimmer with their light installations –something that seems to obsess the Qataris– and new neighborhoods in which the western canon is the style rule.
The ambitions of a nation that gained its independence in 1971 to become an epicenter of culture and the arts in the Middle East cannot be ignored, a goal in which no resources have been spared. Internationally renowned architects such as IM Pei, Jean Nouvel and Rem Koolhaas have been entrusted with the mission of designing buildings that house their art collections and tell the history of the country, be it through interactive installations or ancient manuscripts and hundreds of thousands of of books that are available to citizens.
To visit the Museum of Islamic Art –which reopened its doors at the beginning of October after a renovation and reorganization of its rooms–, the National Museum and the National Library is to enter some of the most impressive, intelligent and peculiar buildings in the world. And while many of these projects are now ready to receive soccer fans and tourists who will arrive in the country between November and December, this plan extends to 2030, the year by which the Art Mill is expected to be operating. , a museum conceptualized by the Chilean architect and winner of the 2016 Pritzker Prize Alejandro Aravena, the Automobile Museum, by Koolhaas, and the Lusail Museum, which will project the Herzog & de Meuron firm.
But there is not only a place for art and culture, sport also occupies a special place in the present of the country. A short walk from the Khalifa International Stadium is the 3-2-1 Olympic and Sports Museum. Thanks to an agreement with the International Olympic Committee, its different rooms take a tour of the history of sports, pay homage to some of the world’s great athletes and pieces of memorabilia associated with different editions of the Games can be admired. Olympics. The room in which the Olympic torches from different years are displayed is an ode to the history of international design and the most honest sporting spirit.
Finally, there are spaces like M7 and the Liwan Design Studios, created to encourage creative trades and to support the new generations of artists, designers and professionals, either with workspaces or with areas to display and market their creations and exhibitions that enrich their work and the fruits of their labor.
My best recommendation for those who plan to travel to Qatar is to go with a curious and attentive eye. In the least expected places, they can be surprised by a work of art that takes over the public space. Sculptures by international artists (Mark Handforth, Bruce Nauman, Subodh Gupta, Isa Genzken and César, among others) stand proud in streets, fountains, markets and public buildings. Without fear of being wrong, the most sublime experience is to visit the colossal sculpture East-West / West-East by Richard Serra, installed in the Qatari desert, about 40 minutes from the city. Standing in front of these 14 meter high steel plates, walking this short strip of desert as the sun prepared to sink below the horizon, the silence, the hot breeze and the suspended particles of sand were revealing an undeniable truth: even in the most inhospitable places it is possible to connect with beauty.