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Qatar Museum of Arab Modern Art to Open with a Human Camera Exhibit

Qatar is likely reveling in winning its bid to host the 2022 World Cup. But there's a more immediate reason to be pumped: The Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art will open in Doha on December 30.

Mathaf—pronounced "Mat-haff," which is "museum" in Arabic—will showcase more than 6,000 works of modern Arab art from the 1840s to the present.

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Travel Snapshots / Qatar Airways / Airport Lounges / Layovers / → All Tags

Security Guards in Qatar's First Class Lounge Won't Allow Any Pictures

How's this for your ultimate airport lounge? It's the first class lounge belonging to Qatar Airways at their main hub in Doha and it looks decadent enough for us to think that Qatar Airways might be charging too much for their plane tickets.

Flickr fanatic Stuck in Customs went to a fair bit of trouble to bring us this great travel snapshot:

I was warned many times by grisly-looking security guards not to take any photos of any people in the lounge, especially if they were wearing the national uniform.

And all that on a three-day marathon to fly from snow-bound Atlanta to sticky Kuala Lumpur (and no, Doha is not exactly the most common route for this trip).

The photographer is cool enough to admit he didn't know where Doha was when they sold him a flight there--and we admit we don't know much more about it than a vague spot on the globe and a planned museum that's hidden in a sand dune. In fact, we figure that outside this fancy airport lounge, Doha is just dunes. Right?

Related Stories:
· Architecture Travel: Hidden Museum in the Desert, Doha [Jaunted]
· Doha Travel Guide [Jaunted]

[Photo: Stuck in Customs]

Architecture Travel / Museums / Middle East / Art / → All Tags

Architecture Travel: Hidden Museum in the Desert

A giant sand dune is going to be home to the new Museum of Modern Arab Art in Doha, Qatar. From a distance, it just looks like another pile of sand, like thousands of others in the desert. Upon closer inspection, it becomes apparent that the dune isn't quite what it seems.

Architect Rafael Viñoly designed the museum to blend seamlessly with its environment. In a possible reference to historic Bedouin tents, Viñoly has used a sand-colored stretched canvas-like material to cover the 350,000 square foot space.

This camouflaged building will house Sheikh Hassan Bin Mohammed Al-Thani's large collection of Arab art dating from the early Qur'anic period to modern times. And, you'll find plenty of other treasures to explore at the MOMAA. The collection includes 5,000 paintings, 700 antiques, sculptures, metalwork, ceramics, a calligraphy section, photography and more. The museum is scheduled to be finished by 2011.

Related Stories:
· Enormous Artificial Sand Dune To House Museum of Modern Arab Art [Gizmodo]
· Rafael Viñoly Architects [Official Site]
· Architecture Travel coverage [Jaunted]