Lusail is about ten kilometres north of downtown Doha.
If you had come here in the early twentieth century you would have found a very small
fishing village and the fort of the then Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Jasim Al Thani.
One visitor remarked “The house of the Sheikh stands about 200 yards
to the south of the village: it was built about 1901 and is a four-sided,
high-walled building of stone and plaster, adjoined by a few yards and out-houses
and by a small mosque. By courtesy it is called a fort, but it contains no guns"
If you had gone back a hundred years later all you would have found would
have been the fishing village and fort abandoned and in a landscape of salt flats
and rocky desert, just three small farms, a cement factory and mobile phone tower.
At night, contractors would come and surreptitiously dump their waste here,
while local boy racers would drive up to put there shiny 4x4s through their paces.
But, on December 18th 2022, the 22nd World Cup final will be played at the Lusail Iconic
Stadium in front of 80,000 people and in the midst of Lusail City, a mini metropolis.
So, did Qatar build a new city for the World Cup?
Well: Pretty much.
Qatari planners had been eyeing up Lusail or some time, and in 2005,
a few years before Qatar launched its World Cup bid, plans for the new city were first outlined.
But when Qatar put its World Cup bid together,
planned for the final to be held in Lusail, and then won the hosting rights,
Lusail City moved off the drawing board and, at breakneck speed, became a reality.
No one can accuse Qatar of a lack of ambition and $45 billion buys a serious master plan:
A central business district with a cluster of enormously high towers
and a central commercial strip modelled on the Champs Elysee.
Mini cities in their own right - including Energy Cities 1
and 2 and a whole zone just for the state oil company Qatar Petroleum.
Then there is Entertainment City with its Six Flags theme park,
gargantuan water slides and indoor skiing dome.
And three kilometres of waterfront have been created crowned by the vast marina shopping mall,
five immense sealed white pebbles, clustered together by the sea.
And of course, no new gulf metropolis is complete without a huge golf zone. Lusail’s
includes two courses, the Doha Golf club and lots of housing for those keen to be near the greens.
And if all of this should feel too urban and gritty then the Qetaifan Islands,
artificially created in the bay, is for you. Here you will find gated elite housing, a yacht club,
a sailing club and mosque for each of the three islands.
Starting from scratch, Lusail’s infrastructure is unlike most cities.
Gas, electric and water supplies are not just buried in the ground but have their own
dedicated network of tunnels, meaning that they can be maintained without disrupting the city
above. Sewage is being dealt with by a network of pneumatic pumps and vacuum tubes.
And rather than relying on conventional electric air conditioning, everything is to be cooled by
solar power used to chill water which will then be pumped through a city wide network of pipes.
Equally ubiquitous will be a network of surveillance
cameras covering every inch of public space.
More conventional infrastructure has not been neglected either. Lusail is connected to the Doha
metro, the light rail system and the motorway network. It will be equipped with dozens of
kindergartens and schools, one university and, in the Crescent Park, for those who like such
things, a zoo devoted entirely to giraffes. Finally, there is the Stadium Zone. Back in 2015
Qatar opened the Lusail Sports Arena for the World Handball Championships, a snip at $318 million.
But for the World Cup they have gone all in. The Lusail Iconic Stadium,
seating 80,000 people and costing almost a $1bn. The arena is encased in a metal facade,
whose intricate geometric patterns take their cue from lanterns and furniture from across
the Arabic world. It also has dedicated dressing rooms for ball kids and mascots.
After the tournament the organisers are planning to more than halve the stadium capacity, turn it
over to local sports clubs and convert much of the hospitality zone into community facilities, while
Lusail City will grow into a metropolis in its own right, as a home to nearly half a million people.