Pearling Site, Museum and Entrance to the Pearling Path

The commission was awarded through an invited competition from the Bahrain Authority for Culture and Antiquities.

The site contains ruins that form part of the UNESCO Pearling Path. The entire building functions as the entrance to the cultural heritage and the foyer for the medina. A large space is created in which a forest of columns and wind towers hold a horizontal plate 10 meters above ground. Slightly set back in the shadow is an enigmatic house in which the museum of the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage is located.

The building is an urban room for the people of Muharraq with the scale of a public park. Concrete elements are placed along the property boundary to form a new locus in the dense medina. A roof, understood as an archaic gesture, donates vital shadows for the people of Muharraq in this very hot climate and produces a new and unique situation through its different scale. As a totality the building creates a universe in itself that is the entrance for the Pearling Path and the city beyond.

Under the direction of Sheikha Mai bint Mohammed Al Khalifa, the Bahrain Authority for Culture and Antiquities wanted to make a clear statement with this building. Her wish was for the building to give a cultural and public value to the city of Muharraq and its people.

In Bahrain there is no building tradition for exposed in situ concrete. From the start our office led the local specialists and contractors to transfer our knowledge of concrete and how to execute it. This knowledge transfer continued throughout the 7-month construction period with up to 450 workers on site around the clock. Our office managed both design and construction supervision during the construction to guarantee the expression of this major cultural project.