Qatar with its capital Doha has been an impressive example of development in the last 70 years during which it has grown from a small town of fishermen and pearl gatherers to an ultramodern city with the highest standard of living in the Arab world and highest per capita income in the world. This highly developed country lacks for nothing, has a functional political system under the leadership of Emir Tamim bin Hamad of the al Thani family, an educational system that also includes women, real estate development in the upmost part of the spectrum (residential neighbourhoods, hotels, shopping malls), while at the same time the old marketplace Souq Waqif was restored in the traditional manner in 2006. This project was guided by the idea that town development, social and cultural change, and the overall process of modernization of the country should be reconciled with the Islamic tradition, resulting in a meaningful whole.  

Behind this development, there are incentives as well as hindrances due to foreign influences, from the Portuguese and the Ottoman between the 16th and 18th century, all the way up to 1913 when the Turks gave up control over Al-Bidda (the old name for Doha) and made way for the Al Thani family to sign a protectorate agreement with Great Britain which was in effect until the country’s independence in 1971. Although Qatar essentially had a monopoly on the pearl industry, Al-Bidda was never rich. On the contrary, the city’s everyday life was marked by poverty and hunger. As the Japanese introduced their cultivated (and cheaper) pearls into the market, Qatar became uncompetitive, a situation that was exacerbated by World War I. It was only in 1935 when the exploration of oil fields began, yielding the first results after World War II. The oil sector was nationalized in the 1970s, paving the way for Qatar to become the world’s richest country.    

In this period, architecture, lifestyle and self-presentation were marked by glamour. The greatest example of this is the artificial island “Pearl Qatar”, an embodiment of the power of money, and a witness to the aesthetic demands placed by the Qatari citizens on the developers of their city and the influencers of their lifestyle. Where there is money, there always seems to be a little Venice of sorts, and so the Pearl, like Macau, also has its Venetian canals, Italian restaurants and Mediterranean atmosphere. Museums and mosques of unimaginable dimensions are being built here as well. 

This project wants to explore the determinants of spatial aesthetics and lifestyle in Qatar; the position of women in local culture; the “Glorious Tamim” movement that emerged out of loyalty to the Emir during the Gulf crisis in 2017 when Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt cut all diplomatic ties with Qatar amid allegations of Doha bankrolling terrorists; the role of Al-Jazeera during the political events of the Arab spring. A final research topic is everyday life in Souq Waqif, exemplifying a passage towards some other, archaic times when the Bedouins used to trade here to earn a living.   

The uniqueness of Qatar lies in its aestheticized balance between social modernity, architectural and artistic ultra-modernity and tradition. Qatar has been able to realize these concepts due to its essentially unlimited financial resources. The power of money is the best creative medium of the (dis)oriented Orient.