Sheikha Al-Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, the sister of Qatar’s present emir and the driving force behind the oil-rich state’s 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. The 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.
The new Art Basel Qatar venue, part of a vast mixed-use development, will house exhibitions and other events the remainder of the year. “[Lusail City incorporating the island] will provide a multitude of offerings—including extraordinary recreation, hospitality, entertainment and retail—to an anticipated population of 450,000,” 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 island.
“It’s the first time we have developed something on this scale [as a] private-public partnership,” Sheikha Al-Mayassa said. “We have a lead private investor in this project who believes wholeheartedly in the national vision.” Sheikha Al-Mayassa declined to reveal the identity of the private developer and the overall cost of the island project.
Asked about the timeline, Sheikha Al-Mayassa said: “There is current activity on the island and we want to respect that… We want to start the museum before we sell the houses so that when people move in, it’s not a construction site. So, ideally 2028 is our target [for breaking ground].”
The Lusail Museum, a centrepiece island attraction designed by Herzog & de Meuron, will house the world’s biggest collection of Orientalist painting and photography. Artists such as Titian, Eugène Delacroix, Jean-Léon Gérôme and Paul Klee are represented in the collection. Herzog & de Meuron is also developing the general island masterplan. The museum’s design has been conceived as “a vertically layered souk or miniature city contained within a single structure” adds the Swiss architect Jacques Herzog in a statement.
Sheikha Al-Mayassa also addressed the tensions in the region in the wake of the US-Iran war. “The 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… it’s very much aligned with our foreign policy,” she said.
“We have experienced one of the most unpredictable wars [having] just concluded a very successful art fair [the inaugural Art Basel Qatar in February],” Sheikha Al-Mayassa said. “A few weeks later we found ourselves in a geopolitical situation that we always wanted to avoid.”
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).
