Qatar at Expo 2025 Osaka: A Dialogue Between Land and Sea

The Qatar Pavilion, an architectural marvel designed by Kengo Kuma, opens to the public, inviting the world to explore the soul of a nation shaped by its coastlines.

In the heart of Expo 2025 Osaka, the Qatar Pavilion rises as a sculptural gesture to the sea. Designed by Kengo Kuma and Associates, the building recalls the sails of a dhow, the traditional vessel once vital to Qatar’s trade and pearl-diving heritage. The pavilion’s lightweight timber frame is wrapped in flowing white fabric, drawing connections between Qatari and Japanese craftsmanship—dipping from both cultures rooted in wood-joinery traditions and seafaring legacies.

The architecture is not merely symbolic. It becomes an immersive threshold—a liminal space between land and sea—echoing the very essence of Qatar’s history and its coastal transformations. In form and feeling, Kengo Kuma’s design captures movement, resilience, and memory.

Commissioned by Qatar’s Ministry of Commerce and Industry, and curated under the visionary leadership of Qatar Blueprint—a think tank within the Office of H.E. Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, Chairperson of Qatar Museums—the Pavilion brings the shoreline of Qatar to the global stage, aligning with Expo 2025’s theme: “Designing Future Society for Our Lives.”

“For centuries, the people of Qatar have drawn both sustenance and meaning from the coastline. The dynamic harmony between land and sea has inspired our culture and heritage, provided our livelihoods, and helped transform our nation into what it is today, a global hub for trade and diplomacy. We are proud to share these experiences with the international audience at Expo 2025 Osaka,” said Her Excellency Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, Chairperson of Qatar Museums.

Visitors enter through a visual poem—literally. Verses by Sheikh Jassim bin Mohammed bin Thani and Ahmed bin Hassan Al-Muhannadi are etched across representations of the coastline of Qatar, capturing the colour gradient from deep blue sea to sunlit sand. Inside, they are guided through desert hues, ancient rock carvings from Al Jassasiya, and cartographic histories showing the coastline’s transformation over 200 years.

The images evoke the spectacular colour gradient—from the deep blue of the sea to the shimmering turquoise of the sandy shores—that greets voyagers as they approach Qatar.

Inside the Pavilion, visitors reach the “land” with sands of various hues representing the desert landscapes of inland Qatar and backlit wall graphics that showcase rock carvings discovered on the coastal region of Al Jassasiya during archaeological surveys from the 1950s to the 1970s. Two maps illustrate the historical trajectory and modern development of Qatar, visually illustrating 200 years of dramatic coastal transformation.

OMA/AMO’s exhibition design unravels across the Pavilion in rhythmic layers, led by a “Sea Curtain” created by Inside-Outside. This installation encircles the space like a tidal boundary, anchoring a three-screen film by The Explorers that fuses archival material with contemporary footage — bridging past and present.

A section curated by the National Museum of Qatar centers on the ghawaseen (pearl divers) and altawash (pearl merchants), mapping an economy built from the sea, and a community held together by the labor of both men and women.

The Pavilion’s second level is a space for dialogue and reflection. A majlis, designed by Maryam Al Homaid, and a library curated by Atlas Bookstore, offer visitors a space to engage with the cultural and literary worlds of Qatar. A dedicated section highlights Qatar–Japan relations, with artworks by Yousef Ahmed and Hayaki Nishigaki—first commissioned for the 2012 Qatar-Japan Year of Culture.

Photographs by artists including Fatema Ibrahim Al Sehlawi, Meera Badran, Hasan Zaidi, and others create a visual rhythm throughout the space. Uniforms by TERZI and the Pavilion’s visual identity—developed by QC+, Stúdio Noor Saad, and the Government Communications Office—bring contemporary Qatari design to the forefront.