A new look behind the process and select architects involved in Saudi Arabia’s controversial The Line megacity for NEOM has been released, answering some questions as to its ideation while leaving many remaining in regard to the project's structural engineering, technical specifics, and design feasibility overall.
Among the torrent of quickly-spliced and placable bromides, the 45-minute "documentary" features Peter Cook stating, "if it's to be a success... parts of it will fail." None of the interviewees, including especially Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, offered an explanation as to how the "top-down, hardcore engineering" OMA partner Reinier de Graaf describes will be carried out in any detail, an element which has been a constant source of criticism since the segment was first announced a year ago.
"Many projects acquire their sanity as they go along, and I think very, very much the case here too — and the jury's out," de Graaf stated before bemoaning a "complete lack of real urgency" on other supposedly sustainability-oriented briefs across the industry.
The notion underpinning the project, namely that more parts of the earth are becoming uninhabitable, as the IPCC reported last year, seems to be the only justification for the megaproject that's based on verifiable fact. Saudi Arabia's population is also expected to grow. Several critics have questioned the state's capacity to adequately power and cool the structure, as well.
Meanwhile, NEOM's ulterior satellite offshoots have begun the process of securing outside funding while its "Zero-Gravity Urbanism" concept is on display in Venice. Construction on its 170-kilometer-long superstructure began in October, with its completion rumored for 2030.
"The fact that just so many people [are] involved... something interesting's going to happen," Morphosis founding partner Thom Mayne says near the end.
The full video can be viewed below via Discovery UK.
14 Comments
Confession: I am an architect. I worked on a linear city concept in 1965 at Pennsuylvania State University under visiting professor Leanardo Ricci. The idea of a linear city is certainly not new. As recently as the 1960's, Peter Cook, Leanardo Ricci and others researched and expressed linear city concepts. This Saudi project is somewhat unique compared with most others in that it is an abstraction. It ignores the Earth and its characteristics, topography, natural systems, etc. The idea that a straight line will somehow become comfortable on the planet is preposterous. Architects can be egomaniacs. This concept seems to be a product of two egomaniacal forces collaboration... that of the Saudi Prince and that of the ivory tower architects he has employed. There are no straight lines in nature!
It goes without saying that if you want to stay relevant in architecture school, you must admire what is unliveable
And disdain anything that suggests a conventional sense of comfort
But that's architecture school. Most of us make it into adulthood.
You are exactly right! I had a studio teacher who made us watch Blade Runner.
"if it's to be a success... parts of it will fail"
Already hedging their bets.
from the quotes highlighted in this recap I don't see anyone "speaking highly" of their own project.
aside from the headlines and comments (is there much more?), I've avoided most Line content so far but I'll probably end up watching this piece.
the idea that a “city” or “community” can be centrally designed and planned takes a lot of hubris and ignorance. The complexities are far too great. Only spontaneous order over long periods of time can manifest a city. The tabula rasa mega-city is a dated fuddy Duddy concept that can’t be made cutting- edge or matter what the form looks like or how many gadgets get integrated.
i see here one big problems here: transportation and time to travel
you have only one street to travel. for all millions of people, who live there. and the closer to centrum of city, the more people wants to travel there. means traffic jams. and the closer to city centrum the permanent those traffic jams will be.
and time to travel: imagine a city with rectangular streets like New York. lets say all blocks are square and so our travel distance is a+b (a number of blocks we need to go north-south, b number of blocks we need to go ost-west)
now turn this city into a line. now travel distance is a+b*L-s (L - how many blocks long was our city before we turned it into line, s - starting position)
In the land of desert dunes, extremely hot climate and mirages, comes a linear city that cuts along with no respect to the surrounding environment, only taking advantage of the vast area that allows such a mammoth project to be materialized. Definitely the planners & architects were not ready for this and now the heavenly thoughts and philosophical inspirations have fallen upon their pencils & pens to justify this out of scale and out of any architectural or planning mind, just because money can buy anything (except love), in order to satisfy the ego of grandiose minds. Could it be possible that such architects or planners to refuse such a commission, of course not, because such nonsense projects come once in a lifetime.
It's all super fun until the Saudi clients stop paying the architects' invoices.
The beauty of none of them authoring this project by themselves means they can all point fingers either at one another or some other nefarious schemer above the pay grade of the architect should something fail.
Imo the paucity of imagination is an embarrassment.
Maybe rename it PauCity.
And I almost forgot. Paint the fucker green.
In the era of climate emergency, let's build a linear glass skyscraper across the desert. At least these architects are pushing the profession forward rather than hiding behind some ecologically relilient historicist disneyland.
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