DOHA, Qatar — In recent years the desert rose has become a kind of national emblem here. Yet this rose is no rose at all, but a convergence of sand, seawater and the gypsum or barite crystals ...

Not to mention Nouvel’s own Louvre satellite next door in Abu Dhabi. The architect takes as his inspiration a naturally occurring phenomenon of the ‘desert rose’, a layered crystallisation of minerals ...

Almost a decade in the making, three years late and at an estimated cost of $434 million, Qatar's vast national museum, built in the shape of a desert rose, opens this week.