The buzz of the town is that a QR3 billion Italian-inspired upcoming shopping center in Qatar that has been dubbed as one of the most cultured, “coolest” new malls in the world by the New York Times.
Al Emadi’s AlHazm is slated to open this September (a ways behind its initial plans) and hopes to cater to residents who prefer shopping in Europe to Doha.
Speaking to the press last year, marketing director Soufiane El Ouazzani said what sets the center apart is its luxury options:
One of the most compelling aspects of AlHazm is that it’s been built to mirror some of the features of Italy’s Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, one of the world’s oldest shopping malls. That complex is housed in a 19th century double arcade in Milan, among other different Italian buildings.
AlHazm fixtures include a 40m-wide glass dome, one of the largest in Qatar, and 200-year-old olive trees imported from Sicily. The mall also considers it a mission to promote art, culture, and luxury, and plans to include an in-house library with several rare manuscripts and encyclopedias, reading rooms and books related to art, architecture, culture and the Islamic world.
Malls may be dying across the U.S., but in the grandiose desert capital of tiny, petro-rich Qatar, they are sprouting up left and right. Consider the 5.4-million-square-foot Mall of Qatar, which will boast the country’s first Cheesecake Factory, or the open-air and yet air-conditioned Katara Plaza, to house a designated Children’s Mall shaped like a giant gift box. Dreamed up by the Qatari real estate mogul Mohamed Abdel Karim Al Emadi, the soon-to-open Alhazm is taking a more rarefied approach. “Mr. Al Emadi is passionate about classical architecture,” says Georges Bou Ibrahim, the mall’s creative director. Thus, he hired 15 architects to create a modern Middle Eastern version of Milan’s 19th-century Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II — with a domed-glass roof, Tuscan marble walls and arches featuring hand-carved Arabian motifs — surrounded by temperature-controlled gardens with fountains, gazebos and 200-year-old olive trees imported from Spain. Bou Ibrahim says, “Alhazm is not only about shopping; we are a creating a new lifestyle destination” — presumably for the sort of locals who presumably for the sort of locals who regularly go on shopping sprees in Europe. A glass pyramid serves as a V.I.P. entryway, offering access to an underground auction house, personal shoppers and butler service.