Qatar Museums will be presenting a special exhibition of ELEMENTAL's Art Mill Museum

Qatar Museums is excited to announce their special exhibition, Art Mill Museum 2030, designed by ELEMENTAL and led by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Alejandro Aravena. The exhibition will be on view to the public from 24 October 2022 through 30 March 2023 and will be held in two venues; at the Qatar Flour Mills Warehouse and the recently renovated Al Najada Heritage House

Ahead of the opening of the Art Mill Museum in 2030, Qatar Museums has released a set of new renderings. The exhibition will introduce the concept of the museum, the architectural project by ELEMENTAL and the garden design.

ELEMENTAL is one of the offices who are designing three major museums in Qatar, which were announced in March this year. Swiss firm Herzog & de Meuron will be designing the Lusail Museum, while Rem Koolhaas of OMA will be designing the Qatar Auto Museum.

The new Art Mill Museum is an important addition to the existing cultural district that features the Museum of Islamic Art, MIA Park and the National Museum of Qatar designed by Jean Nouvel. The museum will house an extensive collection of art from 1850 to the present, featuring works in a variety of mediums from around the world.

With 80,000 square meters that include 23,000 square meters of gallery space, the Art Mill Museum will not only provide visitors with visual art icons, but also architecture and design, films and film props, fashion, crafts, and much more. 

Equal representation of the modern and contemporary arts of all regions of the globe will allow for the museum to engage local and international audiences through multiple narratives of art history - something that makes this institution pioneering in the non-Western world.

The Art Mill museum concept was created by art historian and museum director Catherine Grenier and her prefiguration team. They won the Art Mill International Design Competition in 2017, which meant that their design for the Elemental museum would be built at the site of the historic Flour Mill in Doha. The firm is responsible for architectural design, while Swiss firm VOGT Landscape Architects is in charge of the signature public garden. Hafid Rakem is the Director of Museum Architecture Development and Caroline Hancock is the Senior Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art.

The Qatar Creative Village will be a hub for creativity, offering arts, crafts and design resources for both the general public and the creative communities of Qatar and beyond. The Village will provide a space for recreation, learning and production, and will be a place where people can come to explore their creativity.

"As we welcome visitors from all over the world to Doha for Qatar Creates and the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, we are excited to give everyone a glimpse into the fascinating process of developing one of the world's leading museums of modern and contemporary art," said Her Excellency Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, Chairperson of Qatar Museums.

"The Art Mill Museum will act as Qatar's very own museum of modern art and culture, displaying the nation's international collections dating all the way back to the 19th century," said Catherine Grenier, who just so happens to be the Art Mill Museum Concept Director.

"It's still too early for us to show off the complete collections, but we're more than happy to give everyone a little sneak preview of the museum's development process - especially at such a key stage in construction!"

"Art Mill Museum 2030 allows us to present the ideas and artistic viewpoint for the museum, the landmark architecture, the garden and the creative village. This development of the museum beyond its walls will include spaces for creativity, performance, coworking, art education, and varied leisure spaces for local and international audiences," Grenier added. She continued on to say that artists will be able to have a studio space to work from, giving them the opportunity to be a part of something bigger while also getting the chance to show their work in a museum setting.

Art Mill Museum 2030 is an exhibition that will be held in two locations on October 24th. It will present the vision of the museum, the architectural project, and the signature garden. The first location is the flour mill on Doha’s Corniche, built in the 1990s, that is being creatively reimagined as the site of the museum. The second venue is Al Najada Heritage House.

The Site 1 exhibition at the new museum complex will give visitors their first chance to see how the architect Alejandro Aravena and ELEMENTAL will reimagine the existing building. Characterised by its spectacular concrete silos, the museum will incorporate a creative village and public garden. The evolution of the project, from the international design competition in 2016 to now, will be revealed through an engrossing display that includes original models, drawings and renderings.

Yasmina Benabderrahmane (1983, France), Mohammed Kamal Al Emadi (1988, Qatar), François-Xavier Gbré (1978, France), Ali Kazma (1971, Turkey), Amal Al Muftah (1994, Qatar), and Shaima Al-Tamimi (1984, Yemen/Kenya) are a few of the artists who will have their works featured in Site 2 exhibition at Al Najada Heritage House. This presentation is brought to you by the Art Mill Museum and it is devoted to the development of the signature garden that was designed by VOGT Landscape Architects. 

A display of VOGT’s drawings and a selection of beautifully illustrated reference books from the collection of Qatar Museums and loans from Qatar National Library and from Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, will be showcased to highlight the reinterpretation of traditional Islamic gardens.

The exhibition will also feature a mosaic by Hamra Abbas (1976, Kuwait – works in Lahore, Pakistan) and a commissioned film by Amal Al Muftah (1994, Qatar – works in Doha), produced in collaboration with Doha Film Institute (DFI).

The exhibition Art Mill Museum 2030 is curated by Aurélien Lemonier, Art Mill Museum Curator of Architecture, Design and Gardens, with Maryam Hassan Al Thani, Curator, Qatar Museums Exhibitions Department. The exhibition’s Project Manager is Malak Hassan, Qatar Museums Exhibitions Department. Commissions for the exhibition have been managed by Clémence Bergal, Art Mill Museum Head of Collections and Commissions.

The show has been designed by Studio Adrien Gardère, Paris, who also served as the videographer for the Art Mill Museum.

Art Mill Museum 2030 is part of Qatar Creates, a national cultural movement that celebrates the diversity of cultural activities in Qatar. Qatar Creates connects resident and global audiences with Qatar’s creative industries, providing them with year-round access to the country’s art and culture.

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