Vanities / My Place
It’s rare, says Dutch architect Rem
Koolhaas, that the “complete
repertoire of a modern city emerges
more or less at the same time.”
Doha is an exception; after the Brits
emancipated Qatar in 1971, the
capital city was razed and rebuilt.
Koohlaas first visited in 2006 and fell
for the city’s natural beauty, as
well as its focus on art and innovation,
before eventually designing the
National Library. This month, Koolhaas
mounts Countryside, the Future, a joint
exhibition at New York’s Guggenheim
with studio AMO. The project
explores nonurban spaces, and features
Doha’s entirely indoor dairy farm,
created during Saudi Arabia’s blockade
of 2018. As Koolhaas calls it, “instant
countryside.” —keziah weir
Urban
OASIS
REM KOOLHAAS finds
wonder in the
textures of Doha
- Travel by bike,
Jeep, or the city’s
distinctive teal taxis. - From Countryside,
the Future. 6. The
chain Shater Abbas
is “incredibly cheap,
but unbelievably
good food.” - “From the very first
moment, education
was the absolute priority;
this was instigated
and maintained
by the nonprofit Qatar
Foundation.” - The oceanside
Sharq Village & Spa. - A piece from
Doha’s Museum of
Islamic Art.
1.“The desert is
very beautiful,
three-dimensional,
with lots of dunes.”- The “astounding
and experimental”
National Museum,
designed by
Jean Nouvel. 5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
2.
1.
- In the Koolhaas-
designed National
Library, “You enter in
the center and
you’re surrounded by
a landscape of
books.” In a country
of less than three
million, the space
had a million visitors
in 2018 alone.