Jean Nouvel Unveils National Museum of Qatar
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Pritzker Prize-winning architect Jean Nouvel unveiled the National Museum of Qatar, which was under wraps for almost a decade and is now located on a prominent site within a newly developed civic quarter that connects it with other cultural institutions incluJean Nouvel Unveils National Museum of Qatar
Pritzker Prize-winning architect Jean Nouvel unveiled the National Museum of Qatar, which was under wraps for almost a decade and is now located on a prominent site within a newly developed civic quarter that connects it with other cultural institutions including I M Pei’s Museum of Islamic Art.“This is a 21st-century museum that allows you to experience the exhibits in three dimensions,” says the architect at the museum’s inauguration. “It aims to be a destination for people from around the world that reflects the contemporary spirit of Qatar.”The building has been shaped resembling rose petals. This dramatic shape is inspired by the desert rose – a mineral formation created when minerals crystallize below the surface of a salt basin into an array of flat plates resembling rose petals.“The desert rose is a symbol of the desert because it’s an architecture created by time and the desert itself,” Nouvel adds. “Nobody knows what the inside of a desert rose looks like, and we created a typology of intersections that makes you question what is inside it.”Sections of the building’s shell stand outward to give shade to areas of a central courtyard, and to protect the interior from direct sunlight.“It’s important to consider that architecture is a testimony of time and the museum is a testimony of this time in Qatar, which is a very powerful period,” the architect says. “The symbology of the desert rose is important but we also wanted to reflect modernity, which is achieved through a change of scale and the creation of something that is a real technical feat.”A few of the sticking inside planes are utilized as scenery for bespoke movies that portray diverse parts of Qatar and its history. The motion picture projections, which were delivered in collaboration with the Doha Film Institute, are organized to fit the particular walls they are screened on. “The idea was to introduce a dialogue between art and information,” Nouvel says. “A lot of Qatar’s history is undocumented so we used movies and models to help communicate how life here has changed.”Jean Nouvel is a French architect. Nouvel studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris and was a founding member of Mars 1976 and Syndicat de l’Architecture. He has obtained a number of prestigious distinctions over the course of his career, including the Aga Khan Award for Architecture (technically, the prize was awarded for the Institut du monde arabe, which Nouvel designed), the Wolf Prize in Arts in 2005 and the Pritzker Prize in 2008. https://www.blouinartinfo.com/ Founder: Louise Blouin Read more