| Issue 6
| Qatar’s wildlife exhibited at the NMoQ explores Qatar’s natural past
architects, thinkers, and cultural leaders from Qatar and
the international community, vividly demonstrating how
the National Museum of Qatar will always be a dynamic
resource in its programmes as well as its exhibitions.
Culture connects people, and with this new museum we
believe we have created an exceptional platform
for dialogue.”
Sheikha Amna bint Abdulaziz bin Jassim Al Thani,
Director of the NMoQ , says: “After more than a decade
of planning, we are deeply gratified to welcome the
people of Qatar and our international visitors to this
exciting museum.
assembled creative and authentic content that is so rich
that people will discover something new with each visit.
It is now time for the discoveries to begin.”
In designing the building that makes these experiences
possible, Jean Nouvel drew inspiration from the desert
rose, a flower-like formation that occurs naturally in the
Gulf region when minerals crystallise in the crumbly soil
just below the surface of a shallow salt basin.
“From the start, Qatar Museums and the National
Museum team knew that we wanted to create a living
experience for our people – a museum with a heart. Described by Nouvel as “the first architectural structure
that nature itself creates,” the desert rose became the
model for the museum’s complex structure of large
interlocking disks of different diameters and curvatures –
some vertical and constituting supports, others horizontal
and resting on other disks – which surround the historic
palace like a necklace.
“We have created galleries full of movement, sound,
and colour in order to engage our public fully, with their
senses and emotions as well as their intellects, and have A central court, the Baraha, sits within the ring of
galleries and serves as a gathering space for outdoor
cultural events. On the outside, the museum’s sand-
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