It took 18 years to build, has nearly a mile of galleries and is inspired by a desert rose. Hundreds of huge white plates lie scattered along the roadside in the centre of Doha, Qatar, as if someone has had a spectacular accident with a gigantic crockery cupboard. The 539 discs are clad with 76,000 glass-fibre-reinforced concrete panels, requiring a level of technical gymnastics only made possible by software developed.

This pile-up of flying saucers is the new National Museum of Qatar, an astonishing creation by French architect Jean Nouvel...