The tourism council noted that the Faisal Bin Qassim Museum would be offering tours throughout this holiday, so we decided to try it. From checking out fbqmuseum.org, I sensed that it was a very personal project, with a little-modified website evidently hand-built by his nephew. The BookATour page link was dead, as was the GettingHere page link. So we traveled on, relying on google-maps: two frustrating hours later, through road construction and remote desert roads (with hidden speed bumps), we found a sign that pointed to “Museum” ! And we found a highway interchange not marked on google-maps; and we found a highway access road not known to google-maps… lesson: I should have followed my eyes rather than the computer.
The Faisal Bin Qassim Museum is strangely anonymous, with few signs identifying the entry road, though the edifice is quite imposing and unusual in the neighborhood. An old-fashioned unmarked gatehouse controls the driveway, and the entry roads, in fact the entire outdoor campus appears to have been built ten years ago, with construction halted abruptly -- the roads are ill-marked and bumpy, sandblown, dirty and hot; though a large very-expensively-watered green lawn sits in a remote location, and a large unshaded concrete pool is next to the parking lot with only a large model dhow to indicate the possible reason for such an extravagant use of water.
The parking area is unmarked, dusty, littered, unshaded. The desert-stone building looks like a castle or fortress, well-maintained. The interior is cool and new. The desultory ticket-booth takes QR15 each, plus an optional QR50 photography fee. There are many interesting items to photograph -- however, that appears to be the primary organizational structure of the museum: an analog to a facebook album of photos, unmarked, in varying light, with no explanation or context provided.
The museum is a sort of “palace museum” -- a grandee’s collection of his life’s purchases on his world travels, and display of his automobiles and carpets, all warehoused in a castle-like building. All is mostly well-lit and air-conditioned, with large open central hall and several small side rooms. The original castle apparently would not fit all the artifacts, so another building was placed at one end, forming a sort of T, for all the carpets and furniture.
There is some basic organizing principle, though little context provided. Very few items are labeled or identified or dated, though most appear to have barcode tags. Some of the side rooms held items unusual for this country: Jewish, Christian, Sufi, and Yazidi artifacts.
The lack of provenance or even informational clues is strange; this would be a dream assignment for a university course: simply research and label the items in a given room, and place them in some sort of context.
The museum is so far out of the way, it is a shame to spend only an hour or two -- the guard said that the cafe had re-opened, but we were in a hurry and could not see it. Lunch and then a dive back into the unlabeled aquarium would have been a more interesting day. If you live in the country and need something to do, this is an interesting day -- but the MIA and the Corniche, even Katara Village, are much much more rewarding.
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