Qatar announces plans for new museums ahead of FIFA World Cup 2022
Museums include a 559,700sqft museum in Lusail, a renovated flour mill and an automobile museum
Qatar has announced plans to build three more museums in Doha, including a 559,700sqft museum in Lusail, as preparations ramp up for the FIFA Football World Cup 2022.
According to a report by ARTnews, the Lusail musume will be designed by Herzog & de Meuron and will be dedicated to the influence of Middle Eastern and Islamic art in the wider world. It will include an exhibition space, an auditorium, library and educational hubs spread across four storeys.
The museum plans were announced last week by Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, the chairperson of the state body that oversees the Qatar Museums, during the online Doha Forum, the report added.
Furthermore, Rem Koolhaas’s architectural firm, Office for Metropolitan Architecture, will be designing the Qatar Auto Museum, a new museum that will chart ‘the evolution of the automobile from its invention through today and how it has influenced culture in Qatar,’ according to Qatar Museums.
Plans are also in place to renovate a disused flour mill on Doha’s waterfront promenade into a creative campus that will feature more than 861,000 sqft of exhibition and performance space.
Known as the Art Mill, the project was first announced in 2015, with the Chilean architecture group Elemental leading the renovation. The campus will accommodate artist residency programmes and studio space for creatives, as well as conservation and storage facilities. The silos in the mill will be open to the public this October, stated the report, citing Sheikha Al Mayassa.
A major public art programme has also been initiated ahead of the opening of the World Cup this November, it added. Forty recent and commissioned artworks by Qatari and international artists will be installed in various sites across Doha this year, including parks and shopping areas, educational and athletic facilities, Hamad International Airport and Q-Rail stations, as well as select stadiums, it concluded.
