Almost a decade in the making, three years late and at an estimated cost of US$434mil , Qatar’s vast national museum, built in the shape of a desert rose, opens this week.
The pale, futuristic 52,000 sq m structure located on Doha’s waterfront corniche will be the first notable building visitors to Qatar see as they make their way from the airport to the city centre. “This is a museum that narrates the story of the people of Qatar,” Sheikha Amna bint Abdulaziz bin Jassim al-Thani, the museum’s director, has stated.also stands on the site of the former palace of Sheikh Abdullah bin Jassim al-Thani – son of the founder of modern Qatar. The palace has been restored as part of the massive project.
It is among a growing list of spectacular buildings in Qatar, including the recently opened national library and Museum of Islamic Art further along the corniche. Since June 2017, Qatar has been diplomatically and economically blockaded by neighbouring former allies, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, accused among other things of supporting terrorism.The bitter dispute has fractured long-standing Gulf alliances and the new museum will allow Qatar to reinforce its separateness from its rivals, says Sigurd Neubauer, a Middle East analyst based in Washington.