The Msheireb Museums are composed of four historical buildings in the aged neighborhood of Doha dating back to the start of the 20th Century. The collection of museums are a look into the recent growth of Qatar and its rapid rise to prominence over the past century through statues, memorials and ephemera as living proof of the drastic changes in the people’s lifestyle over such a short period of time. In fact, four houses are melded into a single entity to form a coherent story of Qatar’s establishment.

Begin at the Radwani House, a typical housing establishment in Doha from the 1920s set around an open central courtyard. Pots and pans, glazed coffee cups and other articles of daily life provide a glimpse into traditional Doha life as it was then. A collection of rectangular features define the Bin Jelmood House, an almost claustrophobic space meant to mimic the conditions of slavery prevalent in early Qatar. Ripped from their roots in East Africa and forcefully supplanted in a foreign land, the inhumanity present in the trade is explored as more recent exhibits grapple with modern day manifestations of slavery under the guise of a friendlier or more shadowy mask. Marble models and secreted accounts scribbled in ink onto scarce parchment form the displays of Company House where one faces the lives of a Qatari oil well worker whose back-breaking struggles Qatar now thrives off.

The trip would end with the Echo Memory Art Project tying in objects uncovered onsite with the nation’s breakneck advancement to become the glimmer crown jewel to be emulated by the rest of the Middle East. To forget the past is blind folly and the Msheireb Museums are one of Doha’s most valiant attempts against this.