MSHEIREB MUSEUMS
Four historic houses in the old neighborhood of Msheireb have been renovated and transformed into an exciting museum that tells the story of Qatari life over the centuries and from different perspectives. Really take time to discover the collection, a good half day to explore everything. The four houses have different themes. There is also a restaurant with a nice shaded outdoor terrace, it has recently opened its doors. You can book a free guided tour by email.
Bin Jelmood House.
This house is dedicated to the memory of the slaves who have integrated Qatari society over the centuries and are now part of the country's intrinsic DNA. In the form of a very successful exhibition, interactive, emotional, and finally very thorough, the first rooms evoke slavery in general in the history of humanity, but also modern slavery in the world, including in Qatar with the abolition in 2005 of child jockeys from Sudan for the training of race horses. We then go back in time to the time of the first slaves in the Gulf to the abundant slave trade orchestrated in East Africa by Oman from the port of Zanzibar. An interactive room full of screens challenges the visitor, and perhaps even the Qataris, to question their own genetic origins, in a country where nationals enjoy a special status compared to the 90% of foreign workers living on its soil.Company House.
This house, once the headquarters of the country's first oil company, tells the story of the pioneers, the first explorers who discovered the first geysers of black gold in Dukhan, which shaped the country's wealth into an incredible economic boom. There are a lot of period objects used by the Qataris employed on the site. An annex house houses temporary exhibitions. The one on Qatari women explained in three generations was remarkable when we visited.mohammed Bin Jassim House.
Built by Sheikh Mohammed Bin Jassim Al-Thani, the son of the founder of modern Qatar, this house takes the visitor back to the Msheireb of yesteryear; this once anarchic, dusty downtown area bristling with heterogeneous Art Deco buildings was the soul of Doha. The first immigrants (now Qatari) recount the lively neighborhood life that took place here in the 1970s and 1980s. Screens that light up when we arrive make us almost converse with holograms testifying to this history. One room is entirely dedicated to the accelerated video of the huge construction site that transformed a gaping hole into a new eco-designed neighborhood inspired by oriental architecture. An infinite ballet of cranes that lasts even in accelerated because the work was so pharaonic.Radwani House. This house built in the 1920s is one of the oldest still standing. It has been fitted out to explain the traditional Qatari life before the oil revolution. Each room (living room, kitchen, stable, etc.) displays daily objects from the time that served this modest pearl fishermen people, and handicrafts are also displayed. Unlike other houses rich in explanations, here we walk around without reading a line on the habits and customs of the country. It is better to come with a guide to learn more.