Architect Jean Nouvel attempted to connect the people of Qatar with their land and history by designing the Qatar National Museum’s structure after the desert rose; a mineral formation of crystal clusters made out of sand that is found in Qatar’s desert. The building exterior consists of folds and discs coming out in all directions with a sandy color to embody the desert rose. He claims that the building holds a sentimental layer in which it represents the “beauty, timelessness and marvel” (Bounia, 2018) of the desert rose in Qatar’s environment. This opens the door to question the concept behind using the environment as a means to solidify Qatari culture for its people.
But how can a naturally occurring mineral turn into a heritage symbol? To answer this question, we must first understand the relationship between culture and the environment. Author Tim Clark has brought out the issue of the Anthropocene concerning our understanding of the environment. The Anthropocene is a proposed geological epoch that describes the recent period in Earth’s history when human activity started to have a significant impact on the planet’s climate and ecosystem. There is a broader phenomenon called anthropocentrism, which implies that humans tend to give non-human things some form of human attributes to feel a connection to them. This notion of anthropocentrism which puts the human as the center of its environment creates a nature/culture binary that alters the way we perceive the environment based on our humanistic cultural perceptions. In this case, Nouvel is associating Qatar’s ‘natural’ environment with its culture so that people could appreciate it as a symbol of Qatar’s heritage. We can make the argument that Nouveal’s efforts to turn the ‘desert rose’ museum into a heritage symbol is an anthropocentric concept of Qatar’s environment, which might cause a disconnect between the Qatari people and the desert rose (or in that case their environment) because the structure allows us to think about Qatar’s environment through a cultural lens and not in its entirety as a part of humanity.
Another question arises; which concept of nature was personified in Nouvel’s museum? We know now from the notion of the Anthropocene that humans tend to humanize the concept of nature to understand and appreciate it. Environmental historian William Cronen argues that cultural invention alters our perception of nature that has a historical process tied to it (Cronen, 1995). His critiques of our conception of nature are centered around Western thought, but we could also see that in the museum’s case: an entirely culturally invented historical process is being used to conceive Qatar’s nature. There is a sentimental aspect to the desert rose being used as an architectural structure. It represents a time in which Qatar was merely a desert, and serves as a contrast to the contemporary “unnatural” state of Qatar with all the skyscrapers. So, the “beauty, timelessness, and marvel” of the desert rose is reminiscent of Qatar’s former natural state of Qatar’s desert in comparison to the presence of modernity in Doha’s city skyline. How the museum is built as if it is emerging from the ground further solidifies its intentions to be perceived as a culturally produced concept of Qatar’s past.
The ‘desert rose’ museum is an interesting topic for environmental humanities because it highlights the anthropocentric conceptualization of Qatar’s environment. In addition, it also raises questions about the concept of nature that is conceptualized in the desert rose structure and how the sentimental layer attached to the design is used to promote the Qatari culture. This allows us to think about its practicality as a heritage symbol, does it evoke any sentimental feelings towards its visitors? What are the other aspects of the museum that help solidify this notion and which aspects fail to do that?
