National Museum of Qatar: In the Presence of Memory, a Rose Grows from the Sand

On a visit to Qatar, the narrator passes over the country's modern icons and shining streets and heads for the National Museum of Qatar, where Architect Kendy Al-Jawabra, a calm man with an architect's depth and an artist's humility, meets him at the gate. In his company the museum becomes a walk through the corridors of memory, telling Qatar's story from fishing and pearl diving to oil and a cultural renaissance through images, sounds and shards of light. The building itself is read as a giant desert rose blooming from the heart of the earth, its interlocking disks the intertwined chapters of history, its voids guiding the visitor's path and its light let in to reveal. From this the narrator draws the lesson that architecture grows greater when it humbles itself and is measured by how close it comes to the soul, and he leaves feeling he has taken part in a silent ritual. The book is dedicated to Al-Jawabra and closes with a warm tribute to his kindness, generosity, time and friendship.