A Story of Architectural Treasures

Colors of the City sought to constitute the local foothold within the cluster of exhibitions that opened simultaneously at M7, Doha. Its conception required a visionary like Glenn Adamson, artistic director of Design Doha Biennial, who wished to create a show specific to Qatari (architectural) design. Since my work entailed studying heritage architecture in the country, he invited me to participate. I still think he was overly trusting as I had no background in curatorial affairs – in other words, he threw me in deep water. I could devise a narrative based on my research at relative ease, yet the task of bringing architecture into a gallery space in a way that is visually pleasing and informative was entirely new to me.

When I first drafted a preliminary checklist of what to incorporate in the display, it already included countless photos, architectural drawings, videos, 3D models, construction materials, art objects, maps, etc. I gave no easy task to the designer company Mind the gap, namely Karl Bassil, Carla Khayat, and Elie Mouawad. However, they dexterously created this visual experience where you follow the path defined by the hanging banners – displaying text, photos, and maps – while glancing at additional exhibits on the floor and the walls, always related to the information you encounter.

This city has a history of two centuries, of which the exhibition presents the second. The display invites visitors to experience four trends of architectural and decorative design. It begins with traditional constructions from before the discovery of oil, which we display chiefly in the form of a 3D reconstruction of the Old Palace. 

Then, the focus is more on the early modern period, the 1950s and 1960s, when two distinct design principles manifested in the elite residences, respectively labeled Doha Deco and Doha Classicism. The colorful decorations of this period were both unprecedented and subsequently unfollowed, which also gave the idea for the title Colors of the City. Then, the decades following Qatar’s independence in 1971 set out for a new wave of international design principles, which we condensed in the section titled Doha Brutalism.
 

These are the four trends highlighted in the historical part of the exhibition, followed by the contemporary part curated by Glenn. There, we decided to display a selection from the oeuvre of Ibrahim Jaidah and his company, Arab Engineering Bureau, who have made an extremely rich contribution to Doha’s skyline over the recent decades.

It is challenging to pick one since the reason I included all these buildings in the exhibition is that I find them equally fascinating. Nonetheless, the story behind that of Sheikh Ghanim bin Ali struck me the most. It still retains its decorative entablature today, but old pictures show that a pair of fish statues surmounted the structure originally.

When I began investigating those statues, I soon found myself walking down the streets of Lucknow, a lovely city in India where hundreds of heritage buildings feature similar pairs of fish sculptures on their façades. It was initially a royal symbol for the local rulers and continued to be used well into the 20th century. Although we don't know why the same iconographic element resurfaced in Doha, the analogy makes this link highly plausible; even the physical characteristics of the animals are closely comparable.

In short, artisans well-versed in Art Deco constructions traveled from Lucknow to Doha and found patronage there.

It is stimulating to see Colors of the City living its own life. There is quite some public interest in the exhibition; all my tours have been fully booked so far, and people are often happy to share their own stories about some of the buildings. I could not have expected this popularity, primarily since many of the buildings on display were previously known only to a few experts, if at all.

What I hope is that visitors will acquire a better understanding of why these buildings matter today and why they need to be preserved. The displayed examples are relevant not only because no architectural historian enjoys studying demolished buildings, but also because, as long as they exist, they can continue educating us about the cultural interactions of the period.

I believe that learning about art – or material culture in the broadest sense – can contribute to how we place ourselves in the cultural cosmos of today. In the case of Colors of the City, it consciously embraces this cosmopolitan and multi-layered heritage, narrating a historical trajectory unique in the region.