Qatar - Education City & New Year's Eve

For other signs from around the world, please visit Tom's blog.

Part II 

Tuesday 31st Dec.- On the way home from the museum (last post) we stopped at the Qatar National Library as I had read it was an interesting building to visit. The library is free to visit and you can arrange for staff to give you a tour.

It was designed by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas and was officially opened in April 2018, by His Highness the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, who placed the one millionth book on the shelves. The library collection of one million books includes 137,000 for children and 35,000 for teenagers.

We parked in the first parking lot we found and walked around the Education city area where the Universities are located.

Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU)

The "Al Azzm" sculpture symbolizes the determination of local women, showing 3 women walking against the wind with their abayas rippling behind them. It was also designed to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Qatar Foundation, situated nearby, and the 3 women also signify the 3 focus areas of the foundation, which are science and research, community development and education.

The creator was Sheikh Hassan bin Mohamed bin Ali Al Thani (grandson of the former Emir of Qatar, and also the creator of "Motherland"  the sculpture I showed you when I wrote about my visit to the amazing National Museum of Qatar.

Karina had already told us about the air-conditioned bus/tram stops around Doha, but this was the first time I saw one. And it even had a water dispenser! 

The tram here offers free rides within the campus to reduce the campus carbon footprint and there are 24 tram stops and 2 metro stations (Green line) in Education City. 

Tram station with enclosed stop in the far left

Enclosed tram stop and water cooler to the right

Education city has many works of art and the next one was one I especially liked.

Another work of art in the campus

                                 

And we finally reached the library building.

                          

The very bright library interior

The bookshelves were set at various levels reached by steps, on 3 sides of the building, a central administration area/check-out stations, plenty of computers, and on the other side the children's book area, semi-enclosed study rooms, and group study rooms, plus a restaurant and a cafe. 

On the lower ground floor accessed via a staircase or a glass bridge connecting to the lifts,  you can visit the heritage library, designed to look like an archeological site, symbolizing the connection between the past and present.

Here you can see manuscripts from the Holy Qur'an and Arabic literature to historical maps, globes and atlas, old navigational tools and scientific instruments.

The library features exhibitions in various spots around the building and when we visited it was hosting: "The art of book making in Morocco".

Interesting topic and we got to print out a book marker with a stamp of the event.

Apart from serving as a library and research centre, it also serves as a community meeting place hosting about 80 free events every month, such as adult knitting groups, etc. The Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra gives a free performances once a month there. 

Jose sitting outside the library

Another sculpture outside the library

At the end of the street I could spot the very modern local mosque with the two minarets sticking out. Apparently it's worth a visit as it's beautiful inside.

Education City Mosque with the minarets

On our way out I spotted another contemporary building, which is the Convention Centre, where the front roof is held by two stylised Sidra trees. It was designed by Japanese architect and urban designer Isozaki Araki, who also designed the master plan for Education City.

Convention Centre with a sculpture of a big ball in front

Education city , launched in 1997 and was officially inaugurated in 2003. 

It spans 12 square kilometres (4.6 sq mi) in the Al Rayyan municipality, and houses 25 education institutions, including satellite campuses of eight international universities (Northwestern, Texas A&M, Carnegie Mellon, etc) and students from over 50 countries (75% of students are foreign). 

The area also has an hotel, a golf course, the Sidra medical and research centre, a Science and Technology park, Oxygen park (where rare and endangered trees are planted and allowed to grow wild in the natural environment), lots of art...

Sidra Medical & Research centre

If I ever visit Qatar again, I'll have to take a tram ride to look at this area in more detail, as there many buildings I would like to visit, the beautiful park, many artworks ...

On the way home, at the traffic lights outside Education city I saw this small building, an electrical station maybe, which was decorated with some sort of fake greenery and the lamp posts in the area all looked like tree trunks.

Everything has to look perfect 😊.

When we got home we showered and put on some fancy clothes for our New Year's Eve dinner at 8,30pm at Roberto's, an Italian restaurant in St.Regis Marsa Arabia Island, a small island in the Pearl Island.

 

An impressive statue of a falcon's head in the middle of the plaza greeted visitors

One of Thomas's colleagues had organized the dinner, which was attended by about 22 people. The restaurant had various rooms, including an outdoor one. Ours had a small verandah from where we had a view of the marina.

This funny picture was in the room and we all had a laugh at it

New Year's banners

They were quite busy and had a full house,so our starters were served quite late, but the food was very tasty and plenty of it too.

For mains I had Salmon and Jose had a seafood risotto.

Dessert - a platter with 4 mini cakes and a bowl of fresh fruit

The 4 of us in the balcony

We had a good time, but I missed dancing as the DJ's music was a bit heavy metal for my taste. Still our group was one of the last to leave the restaurant at about 2am.

And while we waited for the Uber driver to pick us up we took photos outside with the "photo frame" of the restaurant :)