When architecture grows out of a work of art

In 2008, Maqbool Fida Husain, an artist widely regarded as India’s Picasso, made a sketch of a blue building. That drawing would ultimately provide the basis for Lawh Wa Qalam in Doha, Qatar, the world’s largest museum devoted to one of the most celebrated figures in Indian modernism. Martand Khosla was tasked with translating this artistic gesture into architecture. “Husain’s sketch is not a conventional architectural drawing,” he explains. “It is a work of art and, as such, can be interpreted on multiple levels: literal, symbolic and philosophical. It suggests a form and façade and contains a series of cultural and historical references, but it is tied neither to a specific site nor to a fixed scale. I think Husain was proposing the idea of a museum rather than a finished work of architecture.”

For Khosla, an architect and sculptor, the project presented an entirely new challenge. “The museum grew out of a work of art, which was something I had never dealt with before. Designing it became a kind of imaginary dialogue with Husain. Rather than attempting to translate his paintings into architecture, I entered into a dialogue with the sketch itself and allowed that exchange to shape the architectural language.”

The museum is located in Education City, Doha’s campus for culture, education and research. “I think of the museum at two different scales. The first is the scale of the artist: as well as housing Husain’s collection, the aim of the building is to help visitors understand his life and work. That is why it includes a library, exhibition galleries and spaces for discussion and events. The second is the urban scale. The museum was never intended simply as a container for works of art, but as a catalyst for dialogue and a place of learning. The building sits on a raised platform, almost like a stage that allows the museum to interact with Education City and the wider community.”

A sequence of geometric volumes clad in glazed ceramic mosaic gives the museum its distinctive identity, which changes constantly with the shifting light. While the façade recalls Gaudí’s trencadís technique, Khosla places it within a broader tradition. “Although that is one possible interpretation, it is important to remember that surfaces made from broken tile fragments have a long history on the Indian subcontinent. They have traditionally been used on terraces to reduce heat absorption and also appear in the Rock Garden sculpture park in Chandigarh and in the underground Hussain-Doshi Gufa art gallery in Ahmedabad.” He adds: “The sketch makes no direct reference to tiles. What it does suggest is a blue volume, which prompted us to explore Asian architectural traditions and the idea of regional identity in architecture.” For Khosla, ceramic “is far more than a surface finish. It is integral to the architecture and shapes the way the museum is perceived: as something that grows out of a work of art rather than a building that merely houses it.”

The mosaic was the result of extensive research into colours, finishes, formats and installation techniques carried out by Studio Doc in close collaboration with its Qatar-based partner Highrise Co. “Particular attention was paid to the broken edges of the ceramic pieces and the joints between them, where the grout itself becomes part of the decoration. Third-fire motifs were also produced according to the client’s specifications,” explains the ceramic company based in Ubersetto di Fiorano, Italy. “We developed two colour palettes,” the architect continues. “One for the blue house, using the colour suggested by the sketch, and another for the grey-brown house. We explored how large engineered palladiana-style compositions could recreate the look of a handmade surface, allowing the façade to retain a sense of spontaneity and craftsmanship while meeting the practical demands of construction on this scale.” The cladding continues into the interior, creating a continuous architectural skin. “Because the surface is composed of so many irregular fragments, it catches and reflects the light differently throughout the day.”