Piperi House Kythnos

The "Oman Across Ages" Museum, located in Nizwa, one of the oldest cities in Oman, transports visitors through the nation’s 800-million-year history with the central mission of educating Omani youth about their cultural heritage. The museum was commissioned by the Oman Royal Court Affairs and built by COX Architects, Australia. Completed in 2023, 9 years after the architects won the international invitation to tender, the expressive building seems to issue out of the desert floor, growing into peaks and ridges that reference the surrounding Hajar Mountains.

A series of angular, geometric structures arise out of the ground from south to north that house galleries, a library, an auditorium, cafés, social amenities and research spaces.
External sculptural visuals echoing the dramatic outline of the Hajar Mountains correlate with the succession of spatialities and sensations to be experienced inside: walking northwards through the building, spaces become wider and higher as you approach the renaissance gallery, the building’s most celebratory place.

The "Oman Across Ages" Museum aims to document the country past and present and seeks to strengthen the ties Omani youth have with their cultural heritage. It is a place for interactive research and education on the Omani Renaissance period at the end of the last century in particular. The Museum holds 47,000 books and documents for research purposes and transports visitors through the nation’s 800-million-year history via a series of in-depth hi-tech applications.

"Our core ambition was to create an architecture immersed in the history of Oman both in terms of culture and geography. The Hajar Mountains are a raw and beautiful sight," says Steve Woodland, design director at COX Architecture.

The museum’s design incorporates sustainable cooling through an underground mechanical system that draws air through a labyrinth at both day and night, ensuring efficient temperature control. The gallery spaces have an earthen roof system with a further thermal function.
The use of lighter framing solutions reduces the overall quantity of materials embodied in the building frame, the foundations and other supporting elements.

Natural light is used throughout most of the public spaces in the "Oman Across Ages" Museum. Bronze features such as the door handles fitted stand out in terms of their colour and materiality against a setting of brightly polished, daylight-reflectant stone flooring, expansive white ceilings and rocks from the nearby mountains placed in the outer structures.
Copper, bronze and others precious metals accentuate key moments in the building. Oman is historically referred to as the land of copper, which is referenced in the façade of the renaissance gallery with its huge triangular cooper cladding.

Here, copper and bronze, with their tactile qualities and warm hue, have a contemporary, yet local and historic feel about them. And, in combination with the Museum’s meticulously designed garden architecture, the presence of such precious metals may even constitute a nod in the direction of ornamental decoration. The "Oman Across Ages" Museum is fitted with FSB 1163 lever handles plus FSB pull handles, in bronze for public areas and stainless steel for back offices.

The "Oman Across Ages" Museum hosted over 350,000 visitors from home and abroad in 2023 and, having joined the International Council of Museums, was voted the "World’s Most Beautiful Museum" in 2024.