Rather than a chain of crises, the Arc embodies great potential
Countryside: A Place to Live, Not to Leave, a new exhibition by AMO/OMA, has opened at the Qatar Preparatory School and the National Museum of Qatar.
Building on Countryside, The Future, produced for the Guggenheim Museum in New York in 2020, this new iteration focuses on “the Arc” – a vast territory connecting regions that together hold most of the world’s population, stretching from South Africa through East Africa, via Qatar and Central Asia to Eastern China.
Technology makes people reconsider the need to leave the countryside for the city
Defined by predominantly mountainous topography, the arc has long resisted large-scale urbanization, allowing ancient traditions to persist. Today, the area is undergoing rapid modernization, driven by technological innovation, digital connectivity, and new approaches to agriculture and energy. These shifts are generating new prototypes that serve as examples for inhabiting the earth in more sustainable ways, positioning the countryside as a credible, evolving alternative to life in the city.
From City to Countryside: Exploring New Possibilities for Sustainable Living
The exhibition is organized across two sites: the Qatar Preparatory School and the National Museum of Qatar. At the museum, an installation introduces the main research themes of the exhibition and offers a preview of the content and activities developed at the school. The presentation at the school functions as an active educational environment, transforming classrooms into spaces for research, discussion, and production. It operates as a process in constant development, structured through workshops, lectures, and collective experiments that involve students, teachers, and invited contributors.
Outside, the school grounds are used as a test field for desert cultivation and sustainable food production, where new technologies in irrigation, hydroponics, and greenhouse design are applied and observed. Throughout the duration of the exhibition, the material produced on site is assembled into a living document that will culminate in a manifesto published at the end of the project.
As cities become more and more congested and expensive, maybe a pivotal moment has come: we can conceive a future that reverses the universal movement to the city that has robbed the countryside of its inhabitants. This exhibition examines “new” ways to inhabit the countryside, which together show that the city is not the only model for pursuing a rich and fulfilling life.
