Qatar’s new Islamic art museum, designed by the famous American architect I.M. Pei, is the latest effort by this tiny, oil-rich nation to compete with rival Gulf countries for international attention and investment.

Abu Dhabi will soon be home to satellites of New York City’s Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Paris’ Louvre Museum. Dubai is planning to develop a local equivalent of New York City’s famous Museum Mile, a stretch of Fifth Avenue that includes the original Guggenheim Museum building with its famous spiral shape, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.

But Qatar’s Museum of Islamic Art is the first of these ambitious cultural projects in the Gulf to be realized. The five-story stone building sits atop an artificial island like an imposing fortress half a mile off the Qatari capital of Doha.

Representatives of the museum said Pei’s design was inspired by Islamic architectural history, especially the 9th century mosque of Ahmed ibn Tulun in the Egyptian capital of Cairo.   »»» USA Today

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