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Islamic art at its best

In Qatar, an art museum of imposing simplicity
There is nothing timid about the ambitions of the new Museum of Islamic Art in Doha. Rising on its own island just off the city’s newly developed waterfront corniche, it is the centrepiece of an enormous effort to transform Qatar into an ans destination. The inaugural festivities last Saturday, including a performance by Yo-Yo Ma, attracted art-world luminaries from around the globe.
Viewed under the light of a spectacular evening fireworks display, the museum's colossal geometric form has an ageless quality, evoking a past when Islamic art and architecture were a nexus of world culture. At the same time it conveys a hope for reconnecting again.
The building seems austere by the standards of the flashy attention-grabbing forms that one has come to associate with Persian Gulf cities like Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Designed by I.M. Pei, 91, who has described it as his last major cultural building, it recalls a time when architectural expression was both more earnest and more optimistic, and the rift between modernity and tradition had yet to reach full pitch.
The museum, which houses manuscripts, textiles, ceramics and other works mostly assem bled over the last 20
years, has emerged as one of the world's most encyclopaedic collections of Islamic art. The origins of its artefacts range from Spain to Egypt to Iran, Iraq, Turkey, India and Central Asia. (Among the exquisite works on view at the opening were a bronze Andalusian fountainhead in the form of a doe with a heart-shaped mouth, and an ornate spherical brass plate from
fountain, and ancient fortresses in Tunisia.
"Islam was one religion I did not know,” Pei said in an interview. “So 1 stud-ied the life of Muhammad (PBUH). 1 went to Egypt and Tunisia. 1 became very interested in the architecture of defence, in fortifications.”
“The architecture is very strong and
Persia or Mesopotamia used to measure the position of the stars. Both date from the 1 Oth century.)
Taking his cue from the diversity of the collections, Pei sought to create a structure that would embody the “essence of Islamic architecture." He spent months travelling across the Middle East searching for inspiration. He visited the ninthcentury Ahmad ibnThlun Mosque in Cairo, a sober structure organised around a central court with a
simple,” he added. “There is nothing superfluous."
The imposing simplicity of his new museum is brought to life by the play of light and shadow under the gulf's blazing sun. Pci visited several proposed sites in downtown Doha before settling on the area just off the end of the seafront corniche. Worried that his building might one day be hemmed in by new construction, he asked Qatar's Emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, chair -
man of the museum's board, to build him a private island so that his monument would be isolated from the rest of the city.
"I worried a lot about what will come after, Pei said. "Even a beautiful piece of work can be overshadowed, destroyed by something else."
For now, "Doha in many ways is virginal." he said. "There is no real context there, no real life unless you go into the souk. I had to create my own context. It was very selfish."
The resulting structure is a powerful Cubist composition of square and octagonal blocks stacked atop one another and culminating in a central tower. An esplanade of giant palm trees leads to the island. Inside the museum. 41,000 square feet of galleries arc organised around a towering atrium capped by a dome, with a narrow beam of light descending from its central oculus.
Seen from across the water its massive sand-colourcd stone blocks call to mind the Tunisian fortresses it is modelled after.
"The museum is an object," Pei said. "It should be treated as a piece of sculpture."
Source. The New York Times