NATIONAL MUSEUM OF QATAR

In 2018, a rose bloomed on the southern Corniche. Its opening was orchestrated by the country's cultural Queen, the Emir's sister Sheikha Al-Mayassa, Director of the Museum Qatar Authority, who commissioned this new architectural masterpiece. The 140,000^m2 building, designed by Jean Nouvel, encloses the Fariq Al-Salatah Palace and its 1901 caravanserai in a series of intertwined pavilions. In addition to the museum and its souvenir store, the^4th-floor Jiwan restaurant, designed by Alain Ducasse, and the Desert Rose, a friendly café-canteen, are also on site. Golf carts shuttle visitors between the various entrances, so they don't have to walk around in the sun.

A giant sand rose by Jean Nouvel. The first monument visible to travellers arriving from the airport, its shape resembles the sand roses found in the desert, in the form of 539 sand petals. On this project, Nouvel worked with an innovative product from Lafarge, modelable concrete. Ductal is as malleable as modelling clay, lending itself and bending to every dream of decorative objects and coverings. It can be colored, poured into a mold until it blends perfectly with the shape, texture and texture of the skin. Resistant up to 10 times more than conventional concrete, with an immense finesse, lightness and surprising softness to the touch, Ductal is a material that leaves room for the imagination. There's no doubt then that it has become one of designers' "darling" materials.

Ambitious collections and spectacular scenography. For the Qatar Museum Authority, the institution embodies the traditions of the Qatari people and reflects their future. The building houses collections referring to the natural history of the peninsula, its flora and fauna, and evokes Bedouin history and culture (hand-painted objects, jewelry, hangings, historical documents) in chronological order. The scenography common to all the rooms is that of a drawn canvas, with films and animations projected to make the visit highly immersive. The showcases are, of course, magnificent.

Chapter 1 covers Qatar's geology, with plant and animal fossils on display, as well as the country's natural environment and biodiversity (with its star emblem: the oryx) and its archaeological remains (again with educational films).

Chapter 2 retraces the history of ancient Qatar, a nomadic Bedouin people living between the desert and the coast, on ancestral trade routes. Here too, the large-scale immersive film canvases are awe-inspiring, immersing us in the atmosphere of a Bedouin camp in the desert, in the days of the pearl fishermen on the coast, while the showcases display objects from the period. Qatari women's outfits, rich in embroidery and pearls, line up not far from the museum's centerpiece: the Baroda pearl carpet. Commissioned by the Sultan of Baroda in 1865, it is made entirely of white pearls and precious stones - a real gem!

Chapter 3 features the nation of Qatar, with its political history from 1500 to 1913, wars against invading empires and how Sheikh Jassim unified the country's tribes. Then there's a portrait of each of Qatar's emirs, right up to Sheikh Abdullah bin Jassim Al Thani, in the age of oil and gas that made the country's fortune.