Riyadh (AsiaNews/Agencies) –The Saudi crown prince has unveiled designs for the capital’s new urban center, Mukab. The huge cube, 400 meters high, wide and deep, embodies his “Vision 2030″ for the modernization of the country. No formal reference to the sacred building in the center of Mecca escapes him.
A giant cube measuring 400 meters high, wide and deep. The new center of Riyadh, which will not only house hundreds of thousands of residents but also offer luxury hotels, museums and entertainment venues, is the vision of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s philosophy of the ‘new Saudi Arabia’. 2030″ will be a symbol.”
This is the physiognomy of the Saudi capital’s new urban center, the ‘Mukab’ (cube), which Riyadh’s heir to the throne recently launched in a big way in the usual series of futuristic renderings and videos.
Mukaab is the ideal continuation of Neom, the city that the Saudis have been building from scratch in the north of the country for some years now, with the ambition of making it an international magnet alternative to the big Gulf metropolises.
A very long strip from the sea to the desert, destined to accommodate 9 million people, but at the expense of the Bedouins:
still these days at least 47 members of the Howeitat tribe have been imprisoned or detained by the Saudi authorities for resisting the land expropriation measure.
Now-as work continues on the Neom construction sites-Mohammed bin Salman thus unveils the complementary design of Riyadh’s new center.
And it cannot escape the fact that for this project that will touch the lives of Saudis much more closely, the chosen imagery is a giant cube, that is, the same geometric structure as the Kaaba, the black building at the center of Mecca around which Muslim pilgrims converge.
Not a few Arabs are already pointing this out on social media, ironizing about Mohammad bin Salman’s “new Kaaba,” which is much more devoted to the canons of global economics than to the rigor of Wahhabi Islam. The new center in Riyadh will be built on a 19-square-kilometer site, a 20-minute drive from the airport, at the intersection of King Salman and King Khalid Roads in the northwest of the city, according to the announcement.
The project will provide over 25 million square meters of floor space with over 104,000 residential units, over 9,000 hotel rooms, over 980,000 square meters of retail space, 1.4 million square meters of office space, and 620,000 square meters of leisure activities. . 1.8 million square meters of space for community facilities.
According to Muhammad bin Salmad’s plans, work on Riyadh’s Muqab should also be completed by the fateful year 2030.
