The architect of the Qatar National Museum, Jean Nouvel, has been praised by several media outlets for building the “only museum in the world to have achieved high sustainability ratings from multiple internationally recognized and independent bodies.” What are the aspects of the museum that gives it this ‘sustainable’ reputation? Firstly, the
desert rose design is meant to be practical as it acts as an insulator from direct sunlight, minimizing the need for extensive cooling mechanisms. Secondly, the museum encourages visitors to think green by giving priority to electric cars in the parking lot, creating pedestrian and bicycle lanes, and making access to the metro station easier. Now that we know the aspects of the museum that would deem it sustainable, we need to think about its practicality. Nouvel designed this museum in hopes of connecting
the people to the Qatari culture by modeling it after the desert rose, which is a crystal cluster of barytes that is native to the Gulf region, and gaining notoriety for its ‘sustainable’ twist on cultural artifacts. We can see that Nouvel had sustainability in mind in the blueprints of the museum as evidenced by the way the disks are set up to insulate the sun. We can agree on the surface level that these efforts to become a sustainable
building are renowned in their own right, however, how effective is it in lowering the use of carbon emissions in Qatar? One ecocritic, Timothy Clark, examines the cultural criticism modes by emphasizing their blindness to the scale effects in his essay “The Derangements of
Scale”. More specifically, Clark draws on the derangements that resulted from the crisis of scale in environmental movements or slogans. When faced with environmental issues, humanity tends to make itself into a unitary subject and as a result group every environmental issue into a single movement. These jumps from scales tend to make our
sustainable habits unprogressive at a larger scale. The real damage comes from profit- seeking corporations or institutions. With Clark’s ‘Derangements of Scale’ in mind, we can ask ourselves if the
sustainable efforts by Qatar National Museum could be a derangement of scale effects. What does the museum’s prioritization of electric cars in the parking lot instead of carbon-fuelled cars do for the environment if these cars are still allowed on the premises and most of the interior and exterior structure is made out of carbon? This is a clear example of deranged scale effects in Clark’s essay. It is a deceptive fix to environmental
issues because these electric cars are manufactured in a place that is polluting emissions. The structure’s sustainable disks that lessen the need for cooling could also be a deceptive fix. Nouvel has not minimized the problem by reducing the need to cool the building because there are still central cooling systems in the museum, unnecessary use of lights even after closing hours, and gift shops that ironically sell plastic models of the
desert rose. The examples above show that these sustainable efforts of the museum to lower carbon emissions will become distorted when looking at it on a grander scale. What is the point of receiving ‘the most sustainable museum’ award, giving priority to electric cars, and lowering the need to cool the building if, in the grand scheme of things, these efforts will not make a difference in lowering carbon emissions, everything around the museum will continue to use carbon emissions, especially considering they are a corporation that profit off the use of carbon emissions.
https://qm.org.qa/en/stories/all-stories/sustainable-nmoq/
http://www.jeannouvel.com/en/projects/musee-national-du-qatar/
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