Art Now and Then: Qatar Architecture

The skyscraping architecture of Doha, Qatar's capital and only major city, ranges from exquisitely beautiful to (for lack of a better term) ghastly.

Most Americans have never heard of the tiny, Middle-Eastern country of Qatar. Recently, our U.S. Air Force son was sent to that country on six-months of temporary duty. It's a country rich in oil and sand--lots and lots of sand...well, both, really. For those drawing a blank at the mention of the name, Qatar is situated on a peninsula on the northeasterly coast of the Arabian Peninsula. Its sole land border is with Saudi Arabia to the south, with the rest of its territory surrounded by the Persian Gulf. It's also a Middle Eastern hotspot (politically and literally); a place where it's 105 in the shade nearly 24/7. Fortunately it's heavily air-conditioned (our son calls it "refrigerated.) Beginning in 1992, Qatar has built intimate military ties with the United States, and is now the location of U.S. Central Command’s Forward Headquarters and the Combined Air Operations Center. The country is gifted with the world’s largest per-capita oil and natural gas reserves. In 2010, Qatar the economy grew by 19.40%, the fastest in the world. Such outrageous wealth begets outrageous art and the medium of choice seems to be skyscrapers (above). The time-lapse images below illustrate this amazing growth.

What a difference a decade makes! The Doha skyline has caused some to label it "skyscraper city."

Our son refers to Doha as "the poor man's Dubai," poor being a relative term in the Arabic world. Although he's easily impressed with such radical extravagance, he also notes that Doha has to be seen to be believed. Therefore this posting is going to be heavy on images and light on text (which would be inadequate in any case). Doha is home to the Education City, an area devoted to research and education. The city of Doha held the 2006 Asian Games, which was the largest Asian Games ever held. Doha also hosted the 2011 Pan Arab Games and most of the games at the 2011 AFC Asian Cup. Doha will also host a large number of the venues for the 2022 FIFA World Cup and is currently bidding to host the 2020 Summer Olympics. Today, the World Cup competition, though still some three years in the future, is the driving force behind some of the most dramatic new architecture of this century. It's still early, but I dare say, for better or worse, Doha is what the 21st century will look like--an architectural wormhole glimpse into the future.

Doha, Qatar, now the most expensive real estate in the world.

As the venue for Qatar’s 2022 World Cup bid, the Lusail Iconic Stadium (below) will provide a world-class football (soccer) facility for 86,250 spectators during the opening ceremony, group games and final. Reflecting Doha’s culture and heritage, the stadium is designed to be highly energy efficient and capable of performing in extreme summer climatic conditions. The stadium has a near-circular footprint and sits on the masterplan’s primary axis, which divides the stadium precinct into two halves. Encircled by a reflective pool of water, spectators cross the ‘moat’ to enter the building via six bridges. An outer pedestrian concourse extends from the water towards an array of smaller amenity buildings and a hotel at the stadium’s perimeter. The saddle-form roof appears to float above the concrete seating bowl, discreetly supported by a ring of arching columns. Its central section can be retracted to allow the pitch to be either open to the sky or fully covered.

The Doha stadium complex encompasses not just one, but three major venues. (Architects: Foster and Partners).

Spectators traveling to Doha will likely arrive at Hamad International Airport. This massive complex will eventually stretch across 29 square kilometers. This will include the multi-concourse Terminal 1 as well as the Emiri terminal (for VIPs), a second passenger terminal, vehicle rental, cargo, maintenance hanger and catering facilities. Airport City (below) is a new 10 sq. km development where 200,000 people will live and work, linking the new Hamad International Airport with the city of Doha. The 30-year masterplan calls for a series of four circular districts along a spine parallel to the HIA runways, intended to create a strong visual identity and districts with unique identities. Phase One of the masterplan, will link airside and landside developments for business, logistics, retail, hotels, and residences, and will be mostly complete in time for the 2022 World Cup.

The link between sky, land, and water.

Guests at the 2022 World Cup will likely stay at one of dozens of brand new hotels sprouting up like newly planted sod (the only grass in the country). One of the more radical designs is that of Iraqi/British architect Zaha Hadid's 38-story, fluid-form hotel as part of a new coastal city in Qatar (lower image, below). The 70,000-square-meter hotel and residential building is one of two projects designed by Zaha Hadid for Lusail City, ahead of her unexpected death earlier this year. Based on the form of the desert hyacinth, completion is scheduled for 2020. Lusail City, will also boast the Katara Towers (upper image, below) with its iconic “crossed swords” twin towers. Designed by German-based design firm, Kling Consult, the 300,000 sqm development features a five-star hotel geared toward business travelers with its meeting and conference facilities, and 614-room “six-star” luxury hotel. Along with that comes an apartment block for permanent residents, restaurants, a VIP cinema, shops, and a private cigar lounge.

(Just above) Zaha Hadid's desert hyacinth, Lusail City, Qatar.

One of the earliest symbol's of Qatar's architectural "explosion" is a work by Chinese architect, I.M. Pei. His Museum of Islamic Art (below), is situated just offshore in Doha at the southern end of Doha Bay. The museum, which opened in 2008, was designed by Pei, with an interior designed by Jean-Michel Wilmotte. While it maintains a style typical of Pei’s work, the building incorporates elements derived from ancient Middle Eastern structures. The museum is noted for its vast collection of Islamic art spanning 1,300 years, including many prized examples of Arabic calligraphy, early Islamic books, ceramics, glass, ivory, jewelry, metalwork, miniatures, textiles, and woodwork.

Qatar, where the architecture of the East and the West come together to breed the 21st century look of urban wealth.

The Aspire Tower,
Hadi Simaan

Another early beacon of soaring Qatar arch-itecture is the Aspire Tower in Doha (left), de-signed by the American architect, Hadi Simaan. Sometimes referred to as the "Torch Tower," the lighting scheme (below) consists of a grid of nearly 4000 tri-color LED luminaries individually addressed to allow animated patterns to be played across the tower’s skin. The luminaries were designed to provide high visible brightness through the principal viewing area below the horizontal with upward light spill minimized to reduce light pollution. The initial graphics were created for the opening ceremony of the Asian Games. The lighting not only illuminates the architecture, but creates a variable and dynamic form for the building allowing it to respond to the many different events that will happen in "sports city”.

Day or night, Hadi Simaan's Aspire Tower lives up to its name.

So, what does a city with more money, more commerce, and more skyscrapers do when it runs out of real estate (at any price) upon which too plant its 21st century icons? It builds more land, as seen in The Pearl-Qatar (below), an artificial island spanning nearly four square kilometers. It is the first land in Qatar to be available for freehold ownership by foreign nationals. As of January 2015, there are 12,000 residents. Once fully completed, The Pearl will create over 32 kilometers of new coastline, for use as a residential estate with an expected 18,831 dwellings and 45,000 residents by 2018. The island is located 350 meters offshore of Doha's West Bay Lagoon area. In 2004, when the project was first revealed, the initial cost of constructing the island stood at $2.5 billion. It is now believed the project will cost $15 billion upon completion.

Doha's Pearl-Qatar. Global warming; what global warming? It's always warm in Qatar.

The defacto home for all this economic and architectural development is Doha's financial district (below), which is itself a spectacular center of the city's skyrocketing urban design. The Barwa Financial District Project in Doha consists of two nautilus forms spiraling in opposing directions. Together, they create a dynamic flow of mass and space. The spiraling geometry builds up the movement of the towers to create the pinnacle at the southwest corner of the site, a landmark tower visible from the West Bay Area as well as the main road arteries west of the city. The project has an outer ring of six office towers ascending in a clockwise direction from 20 to 35 stories in height. The four inner rings of towers, are comprised of three office buildings and a hotel, ascending from 31 to 50 stores in height. The placement of the nine office towers and their opposing movement of heights help maintain maximum views as well as ensuring that all the buildings have access to natural light.

Doha's Barwa Financial Center, the architectural pipeline for Qatar's rampant economic development.

It would seem that there's no end to the impressive urban development of Qatar's Doha, just as there seems to be no end to the photos I've collected for this posting. Below I've identified a representative selection...sorry for the lack of details on each one, but writers, like readers, do have a limit to their attention span; and it's likely we've all reached that point by now.

Qatar National Library is reminiscent of that in Alexandria, Egypt.

Qatar Science and Technology Park

Architectural Minimalism (A pickle with a toothpick?)

Qatar National Convention Center

AND FINALLY, THE JUST PLAIN WEIRD--

"[With] skyscrapers that tower over the Corniche, Doha's Waterside Drive, and it's an amazing skyline...There's a building that looks like a great blue cylinder whose top...It looks like Darth Vader helmet at the top of it...a building that looks like a big pickle with a toothpick stuck out of the top and another that's kind of like a vase on a potter's wheel...it looks as if it was a huge architectural competition and everybody won and everybody got to design a building."

--Robert Siegel