A new permanent pavilion devoted to the artist Gerhard Richter will open later this fall in Qatar, in MIA Park outside Doha’s Museum of Islamic Art. The building was designed by Richter himself and is being constructed in collaboration with Selldorf Architects, the firm led by art-world design favorite Annabelle Selldorf (whose credits include the Frick Collection, the Art Gallery of Ontario, galleries David Zwirner and Hauser & Wirth, and many more).
“Doha Pavilion has been designed by Gerhard Richter as a free-standing work of art and architecture housing a distinct body of his paintings and sculpture,” according to a press release issued by the Qatar Museums group behind the project, which will open on November 20 as part of Rubaiya Qatar, a new quadrennial for contemporary art from around the world.
About his vision for the building, Richter said, “My trip to Doha in 2013 came two years into developing my Strip paintings, and the city’s architecture and history sparked an idea for a pavilion that could unite the thematic threads of that body of work. The Pavilion’s exterior features decorative tiles based on the Patterns that first led me to the Strips. Inside, Strip paintings hang alongside Mirrors and the Strip Tower.”
He added: “Doha is the right place and the only place for my Pavilion.”
Patterns on the outside walls, created by way of mathematically inclined digital processes, “recall the carefully constructed geometries of Islamic art, where interlaced arabesques and endlessly repeating tiles dazzle the eye and act as windows into the spiritual world,” according to the release. Inside, two large Mirrors works positioned between Strip paintings will offer “a literal reflection, or meditation, on painting and image-making.”
Selldorf, the architect, said, “It is an uncommon honor to assist Gerhard Richter in realizing his vision for this project—a major addition to his endlessly probing and fascinating body of work—as well as a privilege to contribute to Doha’s extraordinary ensemble of contemporary architecture.”
Rubaiya Qatar opens on November 21 and runs through April 2027, featuring 25 new commissions and six public art installations among other offerings with “particular attention to artists from outside the Western Hemisphere.”
The post “Qatar Is Building a Permanent Pavilion for Gerhard Richter to Open in November” by Andy Battaglia was published on 09/10/2026 by www.artnews.com