A series of colliding discs form the external shell and define the internal programme of Atelier Jean Nouvel's National Museum of Qatar, which is based on a mineral formation called the "desert rose".
The project led by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Jean Nouvel is located on a prominent site within a newly developed civic quarter that connects it with other cultural institutions including I M Pei's Museum of Islamic Art.
More than a decade in the making, the National Museum of Qatar is designed to tell the story of the country's history and its ambitions for the future.

"This is a 21st-century museum that allows you to experience the exhibits in three dimensions," said the architect at the museum's inauguration. "It aims to be a destination for people from around the world that reflects the contemporary spirit of Qatar." The building's dramatic shape is inspired by the desert rose ? a mineral formation created when minerals crystallise below the surface of a salt basin into an array of flat plates resembling rose petals.

A steel frame that spans an insulated waterproof superstructure supports the interlocking discs, which are clad in a glass-fibre reinforced concrete with a sandy hue that evokes the desert landscape.
"The desert rose is a symbol of the desert because it's an architecture created by time and the desert itself," Nouvel added. "Nobody knows what the inside of a desert rose looks like, and we created a typology...