Near Doha, the city which will host the final of the 2022 World Cup has become in a few years a trendy place where buildings as gigantic as they are eccentric are growing.
An imposing horseshoe over 200 meters high, metallic by day and shimmering by night, is the most visible edifice in the Doha skyline. Recently become the iconic monument of Qatar, the “Katara Twin Towers” are home to a five-star hotel in one branch and luxury apartments in the other. They mark the entrance to Lusail, a pharaonic new city that has risen from the ground in recent years, the largest urban development project undertaken in the run-up to the World Cup. Its cost of 45 billion dollars (43 billion euros) represents about a fifth of the investment of 220 billion devoted by Qatar to the infrastructure of the tournament.
Located 22 kilometers north of the center of Doha, twenty minutes by car by urban highways and tunnels, also dug on the occasion of the World Cup, the futuristic hyperconnected city is on the way to becoming a second capital of the country. It brings together 19 business, residential, shopping and hotel districts, planned to absorb a population of 450,000 people, half of whom are permanent residents and the other half are daily employees and visitors. Lusail was designed alongside its stadium of the same name, the largest of the eight World Cup stadiums (80,000 seats), which will notably host the final on December 18.
“It was the desert here”
Larger than Lille, Lusail deploys 38 square kilometers of spaces and gigantic and fantastic constructions. It looks like the product of an architecture school competition where students were called upon to give free rein to their greatest audacity and creativity. Lower than the Katara Towers, soars a large oval building in the shape of a giant all-white medallion. Not far away, a black glass facade forming an asymmetrical horizontal triptych adjoins a building in the shape of an iron, reminiscent of the “Flatiron” in New York. Like nested bricks, a tower formed of cubes of several colors stacked in staggered overhangs a medical center. Four huge towers wrapped in an ornate aluminum shell change color at night with lighting that changes from mauve to silver. Two ministries, as well as other major government institutions of the emirate have begun to settle there. “Lusail is on the way to becoming a second capital of Qatar”, we often hear in the city.
“It was desert here five years ago, says Mona, expatriate in Qatar for ten years and settled in Lusail for two years. It is now the liveliest and trendiest place in Qatar,” adds the 30-something Syrian who moved with her husband to the new town to follow the branch of the bank where she works. Seated in one of the many cafes on Lusail Boulevard, nicknamed “the Champs-Elysées”, the young woman is “amazed” by the decorations and the animations for the Mondial. The 1,600 meter artery, pedestrianized and illuminated with luminous garlands in the colors of the flags of the 32 countries participating in the competition, teems with walkers in the evening.
The Lusail construction project dates from before the World Cup was awarded to the emirate in 2010. Apart from its racing circuit which has hosted the Qatar Motorcycle Grand Prix since 2004, and since last year a Formula 1, Lusail was only identified as a road in the desert. Its construction, launched in 2006, was accelerated and expanded with its integration into the World Cup shipyards. The site would have been chosen for a historical reference, as we often like to do in the small Gulf monarchies in need of a past: it is the place where Sheikh Jassim al-Thani, considered the founding father of Qatar and his reigning dynasty, had established the emirate’s first fort in the early 19th century.
The project was placed under the authority of Qatari Diar, the public body dedicated to construction in the country. The biggest achievements were entrusted to two American companies and one Australian. But others, German, Korean or Chinese, have also obtained contracts. Housing, offices, university, hotels, medical and shopping centres, there was something for all the international promoters, according to their specialties.
“Place Vendome Mall”
“What Lusail still lacks are schools,” regrets a Lebanese expatriate recently installed in one of the brand new buildings in the city. Recruited into the administration of a large hotel, the young mother drives her two children to class every day on the island of “the Pearl”, a fifteen-minute drive from her accommodation. “I chose Lusail because the rents are twice as expensive as in the central areas of Doha”, she explains. Developers are thus seeking to attract middle-class residents to Lusail and, for both buying and renting, housing prices are half as high as elsewhere.
However, luxury, essential in Qatar, could not be absent from the city. It is embodied in excess by the Place Vendôme Mall shopping center. Presented as “inspired by classical French architecture”, this palace which extends over more than 1 square kilometer, with its domes, its glass roofs, its balconies and its marble floor, houses all the brands of international fashion. In the middle of the imposing building which borrows from the Louvre and Versailles, a central basin comes alive every half hour with dancing water jets which even produce a fake rainbow. The only one authorized in Qatar.