The world-class new Museum of Islamic Art reflects Doha’s growing stature in the region. Tom Otley pays a visit
Doha's new Museum of Islamic Art, which opened in November last year, is visible from the length of the capital's curving Corniche. Seemingly constructed of solid blocks placed on one another at angles, as you move closer, the museum shows new views and perspectives - at one point monolithic and squat, at another stretching lazily out from the coast along a rising causeway lined with palm trees.
The site was chosen by its architect, IM Pei, not only for its prominence but also so it would stand apart from the rapid development going on in Doha. Fearing large structures might overshadow his museum, he created an island of reclaimed land away from the shore as a foundation for it.
The design of the museum was inspired by the Mosque of Ahmad Ibn Tulun in Cairo. Pei said he was looking for the “essence of Islamic architecture” and found it in a “severe and simple design, where sunlight brings forms to life”.
The interior of Pei’s construction is more playful. Taking a glass lift up to the entrance, you are greeted by a sweeping dual staircase that curves up to the second floor, while straight ahead, a giant 45m-tall window faces out across the bay to the fast-multiplying skyscrapers of Doha. This main level also contains a gift shop, temporary exhibition galleries, prayer halls, a 200-seat auditorium and a small café, and you can pick up an audio tour of the permanent collection in several languages.
So what of the collection? Well, as Oliver Watson, director of the Museum of Islamic Art and formerly chief curator of Middle Eastern collections at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, puts it, there is a “quality and breadth of interest quite the equal of any collection anywhere”. The exhibits range in source geographically from Spain to Central Asia, and chronologically from the seventh to the 19th centuries. Watson says: “Every area has pieces of the utmost quality, and some sections – carpets, inlaid metalwork and early calligraphy, for example – are among the most important to be found anywhere.”
Gathered together over the past 20 years by Sheikh Saud Al-Thani, a second cousin of Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, Emir of the State of Qatar, there are temporary exhibitions on the main floor.
On the second and third floors, the permanent exhibition is composed of 18 galleries of artefacts, with themes such as “the figure in art”, “writing in art” and “pattern in art” on the second level, and “the journey of Islamic art” on the third floor, covering various time periods and regions including Iran and Central Asia, Egypt, Syria and Turkey. Floors four and five contain offices plus an 88-seat restaurant.
The permanent collection has such a wide range of objects that one visit will hardly do it justice. Depending on what interests you, you will find something to fascinate. A jewelled falcon from India dating back to 1640, perhaps, made of gold and inlaid with rubies, emeralds, diamonds, sapphires and onyx; or a simple ceramic plate from first-century Iran, with an epigram traced around its edge reading: “Foolish is the person who misses his chance and afterwards reproaches fate.”
The galleries were designed by Frenchman Jean-Michel Wilmotte and are clad in dark grey stone and Brazilian wood, brushed and treated to create a metallic effect. The outsized glass cases that hold many of the exhibits rise to the ceiling and are non-reflective so as not to detract from the beauty of the objects being displayed. Unfortunately, my guide told me that every day a proportion of visitors walk head-first into the glass, and sometimes the staff have to mop up the blood of those particularly eager to get up close to the objects.
The museum is set to be the first of many in Qatar – another is the Qatar National Museum, the annex of which was designed by Pritzker prize-winner Jean Nouvel – and several more are being planned by the Qatar Museums Authority, chaired by Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani. Yet the Museum of Islamic Art is important for reasons beyond this. Not only is it the first world-class museum to open in the region, before nearby Abu Dhabi’s outposts of the Louvre and Guggenheim museums, and Dubai’s new Khor Dubai cultural district, but it is also important for the people of these countries, who previously had no institutions in which to view Islamic art, instead often having to travel to the West see it (see below, “Places to see Islamic art”). In addition, as Watson points out, the collection is particularly important “to non-Muslims throughout the world today in demonstrating how Islam has continually been a tolerant and progressive force”.
Such thoughts are ones to take out on to the terrace after a visit. The museum is open daily (10.30am to 5.30pm, Fridays 2pm to 8pm) apart from Tuesdays, and a good time to come is in the late afternoon, as the sunlight turns golden. If you take the guided tour, walk out at the end of it through the side doors and view the fountains and the private entrance of the Emir, who can pull up in his boat to a lift that will take him up to the terrace.
Such extravagance is thoroughly in keeping with the rulers who commissioned much of the art in the museum, but thankfully there is now a place for the public to view it.
Tom Otley
Doha's new Museum of Islamic Art, which opened in November last year, is visible from the length of the capital's curving Corniche. Seemingly constructed of solid blocks placed on one another at angles, as you move closer, the museum shows new views and perspectives - at one point monolithic and squat, at another stretching lazily out from the coast along a rising causeway lined with palm trees.
The site was chosen by its architect, IM Pei, not only for its prominence but also so it would stand apart from the rapid development going on in Doha. Fearing large structures might overshadow his museum, he created an island of reclaimed land away from the shore as a foundation for it.
The design of the museum was inspired by the Mosque of Ahmad Ibn Tulun in Cairo. Pei said he was looking for the “essence of Islamic architecture” and found it in a “severe and simple design, where sunlight brings forms to life”.
The interior of Pei’s construction is more playful. Taking a glass lift up to the entrance, you are greeted by a sweeping dual staircase that curves up to the second floor, while straight ahead, a giant 45m-tall window faces out across the bay to the fast-multiplying skyscrapers of Doha. This main level also contains a gift shop, temporary exhibition galleries, prayer halls, a 200-seat auditorium and a small café, and you can pick up an audio tour of the permanent collection in several languages.
So what of the collection? Well, as Oliver Watson, director of the Museum of Islamic Art and formerly chief curator of Middle Eastern collections at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, puts it, there is a “quality and breadth of interest quite the equal of any collection anywhere”. The exhibits range in source geographically from Spain to Central Asia, and chronologically from the seventh to the 19th centuries. Watson says: “Every area has pieces of the utmost quality, and some sections – carpets, inlaid metalwork and early calligraphy, for example – are among the most important to be found anywhere.”
Gathered together over the past 20 years by Sheikh Saud Al-Thani, a second cousin of Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, Emir of the State of Qatar, there are temporary exhibitions on the main floor.
On the second and third floors, the permanent exhibition is composed of 18 galleries of artefacts, with themes such as “the figure in art”, “writing in art” and “pattern in art” on the second level, and “the journey of Islamic art” on the third floor, covering various time periods and regions including Iran and Central Asia, Egypt, Syria and Turkey. Floors four and five contain offices plus an 88-seat restaurant.
The permanent collection has such a wide range of objects that one visit will hardly do it justice. Depending on what interests you, you will find something to fascinate. A jewelled falcon from India dating back to 1640, perhaps, made of gold and inlaid with rubies, emeralds, diamonds, sapphires and onyx; or a simple ceramic plate from first-century Iran, with an epigram traced around its edge reading: “Foolish is the person who misses his chance and afterwards reproaches fate.”
The galleries were designed by Frenchman Jean-Michel Wilmotte and are clad in dark grey stone and Brazilian wood, brushed and treated to create a metallic effect. The outsized glass cases that hold many of the exhibits rise to the ceiling and are non-reflective so as not to detract from the beauty of the objects being displayed. Unfortunately, my guide told me that every day a proportion of visitors walk head-first into the glass, and sometimes the staff have to mop up the blood of those particularly eager to get up close to the objects.The museum is set to be the first of many in Qatar – another is the Qatar National Museum, the annex of which was designed by Pritzker prize-winner Jean Nouvel – and several more are being planned by the Qatar Museums Authority, chaired by Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani. Yet the Museum of Islamic Art is important for reasons beyond this. Not only is it the first world-class museum to open in the region, before nearby Abu Dhabi’s outposts of the Louvre and Guggenheim museums, and Dubai’s new Khor Dubai cultural district, but it is also important for the people of these countries, who previously had no institutions in which to view Islamic art, instead often having to travel to the West see it (see below, “Places to see Islamic art”). In addition, as Watson points out, the collection is particularly important “to non-Muslims throughout the world today in demonstrating how Islam has continually been a tolerant and progressive force”.
Such thoughts are ones to take out on to the terrace after a visit. The museum is open daily (10.30am to 5.30pm, Fridays 2pm to 8pm) apart from Tuesdays, and a good time to come is in the late afternoon, as the sunlight turns golden. If you take the guided tour, walk out at the end of it through the side doors and view the fountains and the private entrance of the Emir, who can pull up in his boat to a lift that will take him up to the terrace.
Such extravagance is thoroughly in keeping with the rulers who commissioned much of the art in the museum, but thankfully there is now a place for the public to view it.
Tom Otley
