By Kiša Lala
The proposed Al-Shamal Stadium for 2022 WorldCup. To be built. Expected capacity: 45,120 Photograph: Qatar 2022 Bid Committee
Qatar, once a pearl-fishing port and the poorest of Gulf states, has after years of oil production, grown into one of the richest of countries with the second highest per-capita income (after Liechtenstein), and it has become an epicentre of art and culture in the Middle East. Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art (in Arabic “mathaf” means museum) opened in December, 2010 in Doha, Qatar, culminating a decade of successful funding and expansion of the arts in the Middle East. Qatar, which already has the I.M. Pei-designed Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, is also in the process of completing several other museum projects and a controversial new stadium.
A new National Museum of Qatar is being rebuilt around the original early 20th century palace of Sheikh Abdullah bin Jassim Al-Thani by French architect Jean Nouvel, scheduled to open in 2014. Rising out of the desert, the cascading plates of the museum’s new organic façade will be built at the edge of a lagoon to celebrate the culture of Qatar’s past, and ostensibly, showcase its current prosperity.
