Tech Wise

Enormous Artificial Sand Dune to House Museum of Modern Arab Art

In your next trip to the middle east, or Qatar to be precise, if you happen to be driving through the desert near Doha and notice an unusual number of Bentleys and Ferraris parked in front of a sand dune, you may find you're actually looking at the Museum of Modern Arab Art, a two-level, air-conditioned 350,000-square-foot facility celebrating over 10,000 works of art.

The museum, designed by architect Rafael Viñoly in NYC, will be completed by 2011, and will show off a collection of 5,000 paintings, 700 antiques, sculptures, metalwork and ceramics, a calligraphy section--not fancy party invitations, mind you, but elaborately ornate murals and manuscripts ranging from the early Qur'anic period to modern times--and other areas will include photography and applied arts. It may not surprise you to know that this collection is actually entirely owned by one man, Sheikh Hassan Bin Mohammed Al-Thani, which he started amassing 10 short years ago.

An engineering firm for the project reports that the building's surface will be a canvas-like material, and that the whole thing was difficult to air condition, given the combination of new materials, desert climate and priceless humidity-sensitive artworks.

No price estimate for the project is yet available, but it suffices to say this will be the most expensive sand dune ever!

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Compiled by Mahdin Mahboob