This week, the art world will descend on the tiny Gulf country of Qatar to see the museum that oil and gas built.

Qatar's emir, Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani, has given only a few people a peek into his country's first major art institution, the I.M. Pei-designed Museum of Islamic Art. Now, with the financial crisis and falling art sales dampening the global mood, the $US300 million ($470 million) museum's opening party this Saturday is turning into a major event of the art season. One thousand major collectors and museum directors are flying in for the occasion. Many are also getting booked into the city's fleet of new hotels for free.

The museum is hard to miss, sprouting from an artificial island in the Persian Gulf located just off the sandy shore of Doha, the capital city. Pei, the architect, inspired by the geometric forms of a 13th-century fountain at a mosque in Cairo, shaped the five-story museum like a staggered set of creamy building blocks, each cube adjusted just enough to catch a triangle of harsh light or deep shadow. Visitors can reach it by boat - there is a dock for dhows, an Arabian-style fishing vessel made of wood - or by traveling a palm-lined path and crossing a small bridge. Read More...

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