Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn. Benjamin Franklin

Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Gulf Futurism' Is Killing People

By Nathalie Olah

VICE - May 15 2014

At the end of last month, construction began on the world’s newest tallest building. This 3,281-foot-high spike rising out of the relatively modest plains of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, will be almost twice as tall as the Freedom Tower and reach 590 feet higher than the world’s current tallest building, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai.
The Kingdom Tower—an absurdly vague name, but one that at least seems justified for a building this enormous—is a statement of national pride, an opportunity for Saudi Arabia and its Prince Alwaleed bin Talal (one of the richest men in the Middle East, and the project’s creator) to assert their presence on the world stage. It’s also the zenith in the long line of sci-fi-inspired buildings and rapid transit systems that have come to define Gulf architecture over the past 20 years.
It’s not exactly surprising that cities throughout the Middle East look like they’ve been inspired by a less-dystopian version of the Blade Runner universe. In 2005, the film’s “futurist designer” Syd Mead visited the region and met with Bahraini royal Sheik Abdullah Hamad Khalifa to discuss building projects. And despite all its patriotic function, the Kingdom Tower is itself a work of American creation. Designed by Chicago firm Smith Gill, it’s loosely based on plans for an architectural pipe-dream of the seminal Frank Lloyd Wright: a one-mile-high tower called the Illinois. Unfortunately, planners at the site in Saudi Arabia deemed the original height too tall for the relatively unstable terrain of the Red Sea Coast.

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