The Museum of the Future

This guide to the Museum of the Future in Dubai follows Emirati artist Mattar bin Lahej, who spent four months in 2015 attempting something no calligrapher had tried before: wrapping the sacred Thuluth script around a torus that curves in every direction at once. You'll hear how he filtered fourteen quotes from Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum down to three, and how over a thousand uniquely shaped steel panels were engineered to carry the design across the building's curved skin. Look closely at how the strokes bend as they wrap around the ring.