I was leisurely leafing through my Sunday Times yesterday after spending my usual two hours on the crossword, and I stumbled upon this new building by I.M. Pei. It’s a Museum of Islamic Art in Dubai Doha. Afraid that buildings erected after it would overshadow his play of light and shadow and his scale, he had it put on a private man-made island, which seem to be a dime a dozen across the gulf in Dubai these days. By the way, Dubai seems to me (and I’ve never been there, so I really can’t say, but I’m going to anyway) not so much a modern day Venice but a modern day Venetian hotel in Las Vegas. Everything seems so fake. In this brilliant shot, the building looks like a squared off cardboard cruise ship sitting on top of a barge:

Here are some interesting quotes from the article about the inspiration for the building:

“Islam was one religion I did not know,” Mr. Pei said in an interview. “So I studied the life of Muhammad. I went to Egypt and Tunisia. I became very interested in the architecture of defense, in fortifications.”

“The architecture is very strong and simple,” he added. “There is nothing superfluous.”

From this angle, the building is a little more interesting. I wonder why this rill creates an axis up to an angled side of the building and does not meet it head-on?

From this angle, the context reminds me of The Gugg in Bilbao. Obviously, it’s not really anything like it, but there have been so many shots taken of Bilbao across the water like this, and while the details really have nothing in common, the mass and programs of the two buildings are similar:

Regarding site selection, Pei said “Doha in many ways is virginal. There is no real context there, no real life unless you go into the souk. I had to create my own context. It was very selfish.”

What made me chuckle and like Pei for about a minute then made me shudder. It brought to mind  the worst example of urban renewal (are there any good ones?) besides Pruitt-Iago.  It’s the heinous, neighborhood-razing, opposite of Jane Jacobs brutalist monstrosity Boston City Hall Plaza. Pei is not just guilty of the architecture (I stand corrected; he was not responsible for the design of the building itself, but the master plan is the biggest disaster caused by this building), he also created the master plan. One of the first times Pei created his own context was this:

Boston’s been trying to fix it ever since.

Wow, I asked you what you thought in the title of this post and then I just went off! I want to know what you think, truly I do! Please tell me if I’m insane and I totally missed the mark. Be sure to check out the rest of the slide show of pictures at nytimes.com.

Photo: Karim Jaafar/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images via The New York Times

Boston City Hall Photo from World Architecture Images (it has some funny commentary that goes with it)

ADDED 1/1/09:

*Thank God for commentors. I have to remember not to write posts after doing the crossword or something. I think a crackhead could have done a better job on the details. I even wrote a paper on Boston City Hall in grad school and I had forgotten that Pei was not the architect of the building.  I don’t know a THING about Doha and now I want to do some research and see how the look of that city is shaping up. Thank you commentors for all of your knowledge, and I apologize for all of my sloppiness on this post! -becky