Sheikha Al-Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, the sister of Qatar\u2019s present emir and the driving force behind the oil-rich state\u2019s long-term cultural ambitions, confirmed at a roundtable meeting yesterday that Art Basel Qatar will relocate to a purpose-built venue on Al Maha Island, a district in Lusail, a city being developed north of the capital, Doha.\u00a0The target for breaking ground on the new island project is 2028, she said. The inaugural Art Basel Qatar fair launched in February at two sites: the M7 culture hub and the Doha Design District.<\/p>\n
The new Art Basel Qatar venue, part of a vast mixed-use development, will house exhibitions and other events the remainder of the year. \u201c[Lusail City incorporating the island] will provide a multitude of offerings\u2014including extraordinary recreation, hospitality, entertainment and retail\u2014to an anticipated population of 450,000,\u201d says a project statement. More than 150 houses, some of them designed by the famed Basel architects Herzog & de Meuron, are also due to be built on the\u00a0island.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the first time we have developed something on this scale [as a] private-public partnership,\u201d Sheikha Al-Mayassa said. \u201cWe have a lead private investor in this project who believes wholeheartedly in the national vision.\u201d Sheikha Al-Mayassa declined to reveal the identity of the private developer and the overall cost of the island project.<\/p>\n
Asked about the timeline, Sheikha Al-Mayassa said: \u201cThere is current activity on the island and we want to respect that\u2026 We want to start the museum before we sell the houses so that when people move in, it\u2019s not a construction site. So, ideally 2028 is our target [for breaking ground].\u201d<\/p>\n
The Lusail Museum, a centrepiece island attraction designed by Herzog & de Meuron, will house the world\u2019s biggest collection of Orientalist painting and photography. Artists such as Titian, Eug\u00e8ne Delacroix, Jean-L\u00e9on G\u00e9r\u00f4me and Paul Klee are represented in the collection. Herzog & de Meuron is also developing the general island masterplan. The museum\u2019s design has been conceived as \u201ca vertically layered souk or miniature city contained within a single structure\u201d adds the Swiss architect Jacques Herzog in a statement.<\/p>\n
Sheikha Al-Mayassa also addressed the tensions in the region in the wake of the US-Iran war. \u201cThe idea of the [Lusail] museum is pertinent [regarding] the geopolitics of today but it was something that we have considered from the beginning: how can we reimagine a world that brings people together? This is our national vision\u2026 it\u2019s very much aligned with our foreign policy,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have experienced one of the most unpredictable wars [having] just concluded a very successful art fair [the inaugural Art Basel Qatar in February],\u201d Sheikha Al-Mayassa said. \u201cA few weeks later we found ourselves in a geopolitical situation that we always wanted to\u00a0avoid.\u201d<\/p>\n
Qatar Museums has meanwhile announced details of its forthcoming exhibition programme which includes a major survey of Uzbekistan’s Islamic history at the Islamic Art Museum (Uzbekistan, Heritage in Motion, 3 September-28 November); a show of works by the Italian sculptor Giuseppe Penone at the National Museum of Qatar (The Inner Flow of Life, 26 October-13 February 2027); and Rubaiya Qatar, a new nationwide contemporary art quadrennial (ALRIWAQ Art + Architecture and at the Museum of Islamic Art, 21 November-30 April 2027).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sheikha Al-Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, the sister of Qatar\u2019s present emir and the driving force…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":86637,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[8],"tags":[43250,266,77,4458],"class_list":["post-86636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basel","tag-art-basel-2026","tag-art-basel-qatar","tag-basel","tag-herzog-de-meuron"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/116770170904327378","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86636\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}