Destination Doha

How Qatar’s capital has transformed from a pearling town to a must-see global city.

You look up in wonder at the architectural realisation of a desert rose; a modern marvel of concrete and fiberglass discs. You are standing in a labyrinth of market stalls, surrounded by the intoxicating smells of spices and coffee as you haggle with a trader over a piece of jewellery. You are waiting for your mouth-watering entrée to arrive at Nobu. Where in the world are you? You are in Doha.

The capital of Qatar has gone from a sleepy town of 12,000 to a city with stunning architecture, museums and food – all in just over a century. In the early 1900s, all you would have seen from Doha’s foreshore were wooden sailing boats known as dhows, used for pearling or fishing.

Now the extraordinary curved lines of Jean Nouvel’s decade-in-the-making National Museum of Qatar may catch your eye or perhaps you see I.M Pei’s Museum of Islamic Art. You also can’t miss the gleaming skyscrapers along the Corniche, a waterfront promenade home to some of the world’s best hotels, restaurants and retail therapy. And tomorrow you may not recognise this city with all the construction work underway to make Doha ready for the 2022 FIFA World Cup.

Qatar may only be a tiny gulf nation compared to its neighbours but Doha has been already hailed as the new Dubai with its stunning transformation to a world-class tourism hub with deep cultural roots. “Doha is ambition realised,” says travel bible Lonely Planet of the capital. “It’s rare to see a great city in the making these days but here is your chance. It is a city oozing in confidence and style, it’s as much at ease with its modern shopping malls as its traditional souqs.”

The National Museum of Qatar is a good place to start when exploring Doha, and rightly captured the world’s attention when it opened on March 28 with a star-studded celebration. Fashion designer Victoria Beckham, actor Johnny Depp, model Naomi Campbell, French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe were among hundreds of dignitaries to celebrate the completion of the architectural marvel that has just been named as one of the 100 World’s Greatest Places in 2019 by Time.

French Pritzker Prize-winning architect Nouvel says the inspiration for the extraordinary building was a desert rose; a naturally occurring crystal cluster which forms in the sand. He achieved this by designing 539 interlocking discs – made of fibre-glass and concrete – that became the petals of his rose. “They symbolise at once the eternity of the desert and its link to the sea,” he says of the project which required engineering breakthroughs and over a decade to make it a reality.

The structure is built around the original palace of Sheikh Abdullah bin Jassim Al-Thani, emir of Qatar until 1940, one of Doha’s most historic and recognisable buildings. The museum showcases the history of Doha from its days of a pearling town to the discovery of oil in the 1940s to a city with a population of 2.8 million and the construction underway for its future as a World Cup host.

The jaw-dropping design isn’t limited to the exterior of the building, with the interiors just as spectacular. Japanese-born Sydney-based architect Koichi Takada is responsible for the gift shop in which he has used 40,000 oak pieces to create curved walls inspired by a cave in Qatar called Dahl Al Misfir (the Cave of Light). It was recently named the world’s most beautiful museum gift shop by Whitney Robinson, the editor-in-chief of French Elle Decor magazine.

The Museum of Islamic Art is another architectural highlight of Doha. The museum is set out on an artificial island off the Corniche overlooking Doha Bay and was built in 2008 after the late Pritzker Prize-winning architect I.M. Pei was convinced out of retirement (he was 91 at the time) to design the building. Pei – who was responsible for the Louvre’s glass pyramid in Paris – spent six months travelling around the world to learn about Muslim architecture as part of his preparation. The building is 45,000 square metres and houses 14 centuries of Islamic art. It is considered one of the world’s most complete collections of Islamic artefacts, with manuscripts, textiles, ceramics and other works originating from Spain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, India and Central Asia.

The Souq Waqif in the centre of the city is a way to step into the past in Doha; the standing market was a place where Bedouins and locals traded goods 100 years ago. It was extensively refurbished and rebuilt in 2006 after being abandoned amid the rise of air-conditioned shopping centres. Souq Waqif is considered one of the best examples of traditional Qatari architecture in Doha and is a labyrinth of shops which sell spices to jewellery to perfumes to live animals. It is frequented by both tourists and locals and has art galleries and restaurants. as well as staging festivals and performances.

When it comes to good food, Doha has a flourishing dining scene with some of the world’s best chefs setting up in the city, including Gordon Ramsay’s Opal restaurant at the St Regis, Nobu Matsuhisa’s Japanese at the Four Seasons in a building designed by David Rockwell, and Michelin-starred French chef Alain Ducasse’s first restaurant in the Middle East, called Idam, at the Museum of Islamic Art.

There are also dozens of restaurants representing every possible cuisine from Southeast Asian inspired Spice Market at W Hotel to Italian restaurant the Paper Moon on Jaidah Square. The traditional marketplace Souq Waqif is the spot for more locally-focused cuisine; with the restaurant Bandar Aden one that offers up Yemeni cuisine, or you could relax at Coffee Asherg and enjoy mint tea with a view. Brunch on Friday is an institution in Doha, with both locals and tourists partaking in the ritual and all the top hotels offering up too many delicious options.

To get a true Qatar experience you have to travel beyond the city limits of Doha to see the classic Arabian landscape of windswept sand dunes. Amidst the dunes, an hour out of the capital, and almost at the border of Saudi Arabia, is the extraordinary inland sea called Khor al Adaid. A UNESCO recognised natural reserve with its own ecosystem; the sea was a refuge for pirates for centuries until a crackdown by the British navy in the 1800s. Today it is still only accessible by 4WD and visitors can camp overnight in Bedouin-style tents or just come for a half-day tour.

Doha is one of the most rapidly changing cities in the world. It has transformed from a pearling town to a global city home to some of the world’s best architecture and design. Throw in world-class hotels and dining options and a huge amount of soccer come 2022 and it is not to be missed.

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