Qatar National Library
Folded concrete library holding a sunken heritage collection of rare manuscripts and centuries-old maps and globes.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Qatar National Library opens with a puzzle: sources disagree on how many manuscripts sit in its sunken heritage collection. It traces how architect Rem Koolhaas, shaped by childhood memories of illustrated books, designed a single folded concrete shell that puts nearly every shelf on view at once. Along the way it covers a 1478 map, drawn by an apprentice of Johannes Gutenberg, and a hand-turned globe made by cartographer Johann Gabriel Doppelmayr in 1728.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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