At the Hamad International Airport in Doha (HIA) the Premium Lounges offer an architectural landscape designed to be remembered by world travelers. The project mixes the dimension of interiors with that of architecture and, by extension, the Emirate of the Arabian Peninsula, with a museum space with rotating exhibitions on Islamic and contemporary art. Designing the 50,000 square meters of the exclusive airport interiors, Antonio Citterio and Patricia Viel remarked: “For us the theme of territorial identity, of belonging to a culture – even in corporate terms – and of the potential of the place to be remembered, are the generative elements of the project […] The challenge was to create a destination in its own right, a place on the planet with an identity, though actually free of constraints of pertinence; a “No-Stop City” as in the 190s fantasy of Archizoom for an infinite city, ventilated and lighted artificially, potentially encapsulated and suspended in the air.” The “small city” of stone and steel set into the air terminal of Qatar takes the form of a sequence of spaces, perspectives and episodes, complete and balanced down to the smallest details, joining in osmosis and perfect synergy the dimension of the interiors with that of architecture and micro-urbanism, through the patient, painstaking method of industrial design and the concept of “total design” rigorously pursued by the Milan- based studio for some time. Here the concept of “luxury” is overtaken by the sense of value and a contemporary
spirit distilled in sensorial experience, as in the sinusoidal staircase with parapets in screen-printed glass, which reaching the ceiling of hammered steel panels seems to indicate a suspended, vibrant, light itinerary, where the reception counters in polished steel become memories of ancient ships project into the past, present and future.