Doha has its fair share of public sculpture (usually in the form of 'sculptural' buildings, as can be observed in the Westbay district of the city). Very often though, such pieces are inaccessible to the public, as many of these are placed in the middle of traffic roundabouts or within private office buildings. Until now this has even applied to the Richard Serra piece outside the MIA that, during my last visit to the adjacent park a few weeks back, was still fenced off to the public. In comparison Barcelona has managed to integrate such interventions in a more natural and approachable fashion, and done so in collaboration with both local artists/ designer (see above sculpture by Marsical) or featuring work by other internationally renowned artists/ architects such as Roy Lichtenstein or Frank Gehry, all which can be walked up to and directly engaged with... It would be great to both create more such pieces, as well as places where such pieces could be realized and accessed (and also do so in a smaller scale within various residential and peripheral districts), here in Doha...
Top and Above: Sculpture by Javier Marsical
Above and Below: A piece by Roy Lichenstein
