Organic architecture - 11 best buildings
Qatar National Convention Centre
Location: Doha, Qatar
Architect: Arata Isozaki
Completed: 2011
Photo: By UNCTAD [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Designed by the renowned Japanese architect Arata Isozaki, the Qatar National Convention Centre (QNCC) features a spectacular facade that resembles two intertwined trees reaching up to support the building's overhanging exterior canopy.
The tree motif is a reference to the Sidrat al-Muntaha, a mythical tree that is holy in Islam.
According to the architect, the tree represents 'learning and comfort in the desert and a haven for poets and scholars who gathered beneath its branches to share knowledge'.
Two huge steel columns, designed to look like tree trunks create an organic-looking sort of portico through which visitors pass in to the building through doors in a glass-fronted facade.
