M.I.A.

I went to the brand new Museum of Islamic Art (M.I.A.) today. The building was designed by I.M. Pei and is stunning on the outside and inside. The art inside is pretty sweet, but there are no real masterpieces yet. Contrary to the NYT article (basically calling Doha a new culture hotspot), it still has a long way to go to get to the same level as The Met or MoMA in NYC, Prado in Madrid or The Tates in London. But finally something to do other than go to the damn malls! So here are some photos from my visit:
Here it is! Pretty sweet, right?
Looking up towards the ceiling from the atrium. I kind of felt like I was inside a cruise ship.
There were a lot of bowls and tiles from Iran and Turkey (and a few things from Granada and Cordoba in Spain!), but I really loved this door knocker for some reason. When I have my own place some day, I want a cool door knocker like this one. Rawr!
This is a map of the world created in, if I remember right, the 15th century in Syria. First of all, I love maps, but I like how this one is not from the European perspective that we are so used to seeing. I could not tell you what is what because I do not know Arabic, but, nonetheless, it is super fly!
And this is a painting of Mary with little baby Jesus. It was painted by some dude in Italy way back when. You think it is a Christian piece when you initially look at it, or at least I did and thus wondered why it was in the museum, but you realize after closer inspection that there is Islamic text in Arabic throughout it. As a result, I loved it...and I want it!

So this was my visit to the M.I.A. in a nutshell.

And I am off to India tomorrow! Probably no posts until I return.