Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha unveils a significant campus expansion guided by Lina Ghotmeh. The project marks the museum’s fifteenth anniversary and signals a shift toward a broader role that blends exhibition with making, research, and community gathering.
The expansion begins at ground level with a redesigned lobby and library, creating a welcoming social threshold for visitors. The design evokes a majlis-inspired, open-plan space organized around modular furniture that supports reading, conversation, and public programs while remaining adaptable over time. Ghotmeh’s ongoing work in Qatar also includes the newly announced first permanent national pavilion for Qatar in the Giardini della Biennale di Venezia, affirmed earlier this year.
Ground-level developments establish the tone for Mathaf’s broader expansion. The library will curate art publications from the region alongside museum and Qatar Museums titles, inviting visitors to linger and return. A café and a expanded book and gift shop extend the sequence, positioning the ground floor as a daily entry point for the campus.
New visual anchors within the atrium emphasize the museum’s civic presence. A large-scale Yan Pei-Ming portrait complements existing commissions honoring Qatar’s leadership, rooting the renewed interior in the institution’s ongoing narrative and designating the atrium as a gathering space.
As Mathaf celebrates its fifteenth year, the proposal envisions phases that extend beyond the current footprint, reshaping the surrounding plaza and service zones into studios for artists and designers. Ceramics facilities will enable large-scale production through shared work areas and equipment developed with practicing artists. Additional spaces for glass, woodworking, and material experimentation will sit alongside a sound studio developed in collaboration with composer and artist Tarek Atoui.
Together, these spaces lay the groundwork for a new residency program, turning the Arab Museum into a site for sustained artistic practice. Exhibitions tied to the anniversary program—featuring interventions by Atoui and Gabriel Chaile—preview how making, research, and display will coexist across the campus.
Design language across the project emphasizes continuity and material presence. Existing warehouses will be converted into studios, wrapped in a coherent architectural skin that unifies varied volumes. This curtain-like envelope mediates light and scale while giving the campus a recognizable identity from a distance.
At ground level, a continuous earthen surface will connect buildings and outdoor spaces, with landscape that responds to the regional climate. The expansion redefines Mathaf as an active environment for learning and production, extending the institution’s mission through architecture that supports daily use, long visits, and evolving forms of artistic work.
The ground-floor addition includes a new café and bookshop to extend the museum’s daily life beyond exhibitions, while future phases plan to convert neighboring sites into artist studios and workshops. The development will nurture ceramics, glass, sound, and material practices as core elements of the new residency program.
Project details:
- Name: Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art (Doha, Qatar)
- Architect: Lina Ghotmeh
- Location: Doha, Qatar
- Social handle: @mathafmodern
- Website: mathaf.org.qa
- Visual identity and communications: Lina Ghotmeh’s practice
- Context: A major expansion aligning with Mathaf’s fifteenth anniversary and a broadened role for the institution.
