Oman Across Ages Museum in Manah, which has been ranked among the best new buildings in the world, has been shortlisted for this year's World Architecture Festival (WAF) Awards in the completed category. The final awards will be presented in November this year in Singapore.
Nominated in the category of Cultural Buildings, WAF described Oman Across Ages Museum as "a celebration of the country's rich history, culture and economic growth through time while offering an insight into Oman's tomorrow. The museum is a cultural and educational landmark for all Omanis and visitors. The sheer scale of the building as it rises out of the ground to the horizon is something to behold. It includes various galleries, a library, an auditorium, and education, social and research spaces.
As a cultural landmark, the museum transports visitors through the nation's 800 million-year history through a series of immersive, high-tech experiences. The building emerges as a series of angular, geometric volumes that sit in dialogue with the encompassing backdrop of the peaks and ridges of the Al Hajar Mountain range. In harmony with the architecture, the exhibition design celebrates Oman's rich heritage from prehistory to the modern day using the latest immersive technologies.
During this weekend, the museum received 7,708 visitors on the first day of the Hijri New Year from various governorates of the Sultanate of Oman.
Nasser bin Said al Riyami, Head of the Visitor Services Department, said that a number of measures were taken to facilitate the movement of visitors inside the museum, including assigning an additional number of employees to facilitate the movement of visitors and answer their inquiries. The museum administration is working on improving procedures for booking tickets to enter the museum and exhibition halls by developing an online ticketing platform, which will soon be available to the public, and self-service ticketing machines.
The museum halls receive visitors from Saturday to Thursday from 9 am to 5 pm and on Friday from 1.30 pm until 7 pm. The museum, built under the Royal orders of the late Sultan Qaboos, who laid the foundation stone for the project on July 14, 2015, is the largest of its kind in the region, offering visitors an interactive experience of the cultural and geographic diversity of the Sultanate The building includes galleries, a library, an auditorium, cafés, and social and research spaces. The permanent exhibition space is 9,000 sqm, and some galleries stretch more than 20 metres high.
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