A map in search of lost territory

摘要

The modern urban development of Doha is a postwar phenomenon triggered by the discovery of onshore petroleum at Jebel Dukhan, Qatar, in 1939, and the start of oil exports in 1949. The discovery of the 25 trillion cubic metre North Field natural gas reserve came in 1971, a year after the publication of JG Ballard's novel-in-fragments, The Atrocity Exhibition. 'Deserts possess a particular magic', he noted in one of them, 'since they have exhausted their own futures, and are thus free of time. Anything erected there, a city, a pyramid, a motel, stands outside time.'.