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“There won’t be a supermarket,” Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Tell Bloomberg 2017. “Zero. No one is going to buy stuff for their home. Everything is going to come to your home through technology.”
The then 32-year-old was developing the most ambitious vision for a city in human history. His megaproject Neom will change Saudi Arabia Transform from an oil-dependent economy to a global center of innovation and prosperity.
Just a few months ago, he became the de facto ruler of the kingdom, It promises to usher in an era of idealism and technological revolution. It was his boldest gamble yet.
As part of the Neom project, more than £363 billion will be invested in building a mountain ski resort, several coastal resorts and an industrial estate on the Red Sea coast.
But the jewel in Neom’s crown is The Line: a 170-kilometer-long megacity made up of two gleaming 500-meter-high skyscrapers that jut into the desert sky.
Less than a decade after Neom was announced, the Saudi government appears to have admitted defeat. After a series of delays and cost inflation financial times Reports say the project will be scaled back.
Saudi officials now envision Neom being “much smaller” than the original design, but architects say the project was doomed from the start.
“This is a great example of a type of architecture where you can come up with something provocative to get a reaction. This has always been an advertising stunt for Saudi Arabia,” said Professor James Campbell, an architect and architectural historian at the University of Cambridge.
He claims that most people in the construction community agree with him, but some are frustrated that the plans were not dismissed sooner. “It ignores all [engineering] question. It’s just a big shiny wall. “
The restrictions are not structural, he said. In theory, building a subway line is physically possible, but it doesn’t make sense for the city from an urban planning or financial perspective.
“As a building it makes no sense, as a city it makes no sense – the perfect shape of a city is a tight circle,” he said, adding that the project was “not economically viable”.
Riyadh does not deny huge cost overruns. “We spent too much money,” a Saudi official told an investment forum in November. “We’re sprinting at 100 miles an hour. We’re in the red now. We need to reprioritize.”
Prince Mohammed himself reportedly came up with the idea of building a linear city. The original design, proposed by Los Angeles-based architecture firm Morphosis, proposed a 2-kilometre-wide strip stretching from the sea to the mountains, connected entirely by rail.
But the crown prince’s ambitions are growing. “I told the team, ‘How about we take those two kilos?[metres] And then we flip it into two towers? Will this work? Or will it have a huge impact? ” he said in a documentary about the project. discovery channel.
The new brief envisions a 200-metre-wide city that could house nine million people and run without roads, cars or emissions. Officials say it will run on 100% renewable energy.
Morphosis was founded by star architect Thom Mayne, who drafted the original design. Other major architecture and planning firms are also on board, including Adjaye Associates, Peter Cook and OMA.
Several companies, including Morphosis, have left the Neom team amid growing concerns about budget constraints and alleged human rights abuses on site.
The project is currently being led by firms including Delugan Meissl Associate Architects, Gensler and Mott MacDonald. It’s unclear what role they will play as Neom scales back.
independent Most of the public companies involved in the project, as well as Neom itself, have been contacted but have received no response.
Despite the skepticism, Prince Mohammed has consistently dismissed those who doubt the project, claiming it will add $100 billion to Saudi GDP by 2030.
But Dr Neil Quilliam, associate fellow at Chatham House’s Middle East and North Africa programme, said the crown prince was “overly ambitious from the outset”.
He told reporters that officials in Riyadh were “drawn by the enthusiasm for the change that is taking place” but were privately skeptical about whether it could be achieved independent.
“At that particular moment, Saudi Arabia suddenly had this energy, power and will to do whatever it wanted to do and really set a new agenda,” he said.
“It wants to show that there’s a clear will and desire to show that the country is shifting and changing. In Neom, it kind of shows that.”
Dr Quilliam said a significant reduction in the size of the project would therefore create a “sense of embarrassment”. He added that Prince Mohammed had gone through a series of “painful learning processes” during his time in power and would emerge with a stronger sense of “realism.”
He said projects of Neom’s size would be unlikely to proceed in the future. For now, there will be no gleaming towers in the desert.