Engineering Economies of Identity: Saudi Planning, Pan-Islamism, and Transnational Architectural Production

Abstract

Between the early 1960s and the 1980s, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia commissioned a series of large-scale architectural projects as part of an ambitious building programme drawing on both local and foreign sets of resources and expertise. Building from a reading of planning documents and commentaries produced by the government of the Kingdom alongside archival material from several US architecture firms, this article resituates these architectural projects as part of two of the government’s larger political agendas: economic development planning and Pan-Islamic solidarity. By doing so, the article reveals the multifaceted character of these projects and the complex role of architecture in the Saudi government’s nation building activities. It further shows how these architectural projects became a means of engineering internal and international political economies in a manner that helped establish and shape larger long-lasting patterns of transnational architectural production.

Keywords:

• Pan-Islamism
• Saudi Arabia
• architecture
• economic
• planning
• nation
• building

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Walter McQuade, “The Arabian Building Boom is Making Construction History,” Fortune 94, no. 3 (September 1976): 112.

2 Examples of this include Nicholas Adams, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill: SOM since 1936 (Milan: Electa, 2006); Yasmin Sabina Khan, Engineering Architecture: The Vision of Fazlur R. Khan (New York: W.W. Norton, 2004); Jonathan King and Philip Langdon, eds., The CRS Team and the Business of Architecture (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2002); Walter McQuade, Architecture in the Real World: The Work of HOK (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1984).

3 See Murray Fraser and Nasser Golzari, eds, Architecture and Globalization in the Persian Gulf Region (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2013); Nasser Rabat, “Architecture,” in The Cambridge Companion to Modern Arab Culture, ed. Dwight Reynolds (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 209–23; Jeffrey W. Cody, Exporting American Architecture, 1870–2000 (New York: Routledge, 2003).

4 A partial exception to the glossing of the Saudi government’s building program in the texts of Nasser Rabat, Jeffery Cody, and others is an essay by Gwendolyn Wright. Wright, however offers little contextualisation of the building programme within the larger ambitions or political positions of the Saudi government. See Gwendolyn Wright, “Global Ambition and Local Knowledge,” in Modernism and the Middle East: Architecture and Politics in the Twentieth Century, ed. Sandy Isenstadt and Kishwar Rizvi (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2008), 221–54.

5 Philip Harsham, “Partners in Growth,” ARAMCO World, January–February 1977, 26–39; Robert P. Grathwol and Donita M. Moorhus, Bricks, Sand, and Marble: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Construction in the Mediterranean and Middle East, 1947–1991 (Washington, DC: United States Army, 2009).

6 Christophe Jaffrelot, “South Asian Muslims’ Interactions with Arabian Islam Until the 1990s: What Pan-Islamism Before and After Pakistan?” in Pan-Islamic Connections: Transnational Networks Between South Asia and the Gulf, ed. Christophe Jaffrelot and Laurence Louer (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 36–44.

7 Naveed S. Sheikh, “Postmodern Pan-Islamism?: The International Politics, and Polemics, of Contemporary Islam,” Journal of Third World Studies 19, no. 2 (Fall 2002): 52–53.

8 Both the Pan-Islamic project pursued by the Saudi government and the Pan-Arab movement promoted by the Egyptian government were efforts at a form of transnational political organisation that at times sought to use or reject the US-Soviet Cold War as an ordering mechanism for fostering Inter-Islamic relations. The Pan-Arab movement eventually coalesced around a more secular, ethnic, and class definition, whereas the Saudi government’s version of Pan-Islamism sought a broader sphere of influence while also retaining its religious rather than ethno-cultural associations in part due to the Wahabbist strictures around which the Saudi government modelled as well as legitimised its actions. See Lorenz M. Luthi, Cold Wars: Asia, The Middle East, Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), 320–22; Nadav Safran, Saudi Arabia: The Ceaseless Quest for Security (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2018), 110.

9 Sami Zubaida’s analysis suggests “states in search of nations” were common in the post-colonial Arabian Peninsula. See Lawrence Vale, Architecture, Power and National Identity, 2nd edn (New York: Routledge, 2008), 107–112; Sami Zubaida, “The Fragments Imagine the Nation: The Case of Iraq,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 34, no. 2 (2002), 206.

10 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (New York: Verso, 2006), 6.

11 Toby Matthiesen, “Migration, Minorities, and Radical Networks: Labour Movements and Opposition Groups in Saudi Arabia, 1950–1975,” International Review of Social History 59, no. 3 (December 2014), 477; Ramon Knauerhase, “Saudi Arabia: Fifty Years of Economic Change,” Current History 82, no. 480 (January 1983), 22.

12 Arindam Dutta, “Marginality and Metaengineering: Keynes and Arup,” in Governing by Design: Architecture, Economy, and Politics in the Twentieth Century, ed. Aggregate (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2012), 237–67.

13 Robert Vitalis, America’s Kingdom: Mythmaking on the Saudi Oil Frontier (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2007), 189–90.

14 Safran, Saudi Arabia, 81.

15 Michael G. Nehme “Saudi Development Plans: Between Capitalism and Islamic Values,” Middle Eastern Studies 30, no. 3 (July 1994): 632–33; Fouad Al-Farsy, Saudi Arabia: A Case Study in Development (London: Kegan Paul International, 1986), 136–37; Mashary Al-Naim, “Dammam, Saudi Arabia,” in Architecture and Globalization in the Persian Gulf Region, ed. Fraser and Golzari, 74.

16 Al-Farsy, Saudi Arabia, 129–31; Todd Reisz, “Plans the Earth Swallows,” http://www.toddreisz.com/portfolio/plans-the-earth-swallows-an-interview-with-abdulrahman-makhlouf/

17 Robert Looney, “The Evolution and Evaluation of Saudi Arabian Economic Planning,” Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies 9, no. 2 (Winter 1985), 4–5.

18 Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Central Planning Organization, Development Plan, 1390 A.H. (Dammam: 1390 A.H.), 65–94.

19 Central Planning Organization, Development Plan, 1390 A.H., 22–23, 94

20 Central Planning Organization, Development Plan, 1390 A.H., 23; Michel G. Nehme, “Saudi Development Plans between Capitalist and Islamic Values,” Middle Eastern Studies 30, no. 1 (July 1994), 633.

21 Central Planning Organization, Development Plan, 1390 A.H., 23; Ahmed Assah, Miracle of the Desert Kingdom (London: Johnson, 1969), 252.

22 ARAMCO, ARAMCO Handbook: Oil and the Middle East (Dhahran: ARAMCO, 1968), 193.

23 Jon Parssinen and Kaizir Talib, “A Traditional Community and Modernization: Saudi Camp, Dhahran,” Journal of Architectural Education 35, no. 3 (Spring 1982), 14.

24 Central Planning Organization, Development Plan, 1390 A.H., 2123

25 Charles Lawrence, Saudi Search (Houston, TX: CRSS, 1986), 24.

26 For the role of concrete in articulations of locality and modernity in architecture, see also Michael Kubo, “Architecture Incorporated: Authorship, Anonymity, and Collaboration in Postwar Modernism” (PhD diss., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2018), 283–84; King and Langdon, The CRS Team, 144.

27 Walter McQuade, “The Arabian Building Boom is Making Construction History,” Fortune 94, no. 3 (September 1976): 112.

28 Matthiesen, “Migration, Minorities, and Radical Networks,” 494–97; Parssinen and Talib, “A Traditional Community,” 14.

29 Looney, “The Evolution and Evaluation of Saudi Arabian Economic Planning,” 6.

30 These projects coincided with the launch of the first architecture periodical in Saudi Arabia, Albeena. Christa Udschi, “International Symposium on Islamic Architecture and Urbanism,” Albeena 2, no. 10 (1981): 2–6.

31 Central Planning Organization, Development Plan, 1390 A.H., 23.

32 Nehme, “Saudi Development Plans,” 636–37; Kiren Aziz Chaudhry, The Price of Wealth: Economies and Institutions in the Middle East (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997), 312–17.

33 Saleh A. Al-Hathloul, “Tradition, Continuity, and Change in the Physical Environment: The Arab-Muslim City” (PhD diss., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1981); Saleh A. Al-Hathloul, “Riyadh Architecture in One Hundred Years,” transcript of lecture given at the Centre for the Study of the Built Environment, Amman, Jordan, April 21, 2002; Nehme, “Saudi Development Plans,” 637.

34 Al-Farsy, Saudi Arabia, 152.

35 Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Ministry of Planning, Second Development Plan 1395–1400 A.H., 1975–1980 A.D. (Riyadh: Central Planning Organization, 1975), 58, 93–94, 308–34; Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Socio-Economic Development Plan for the Western Region, First Technical Report (Riyadh: Ministry of Planning, 1974), copy in Skidmore, Owings & Merrill Chicago archives.

36 Khan, Engineering Architecture, 316–17.

37 Khan, Engineering Architecture, 321; “Job Memorandum: Meeting at the Churchill Hotel London, England,” September 5, 1979, SOM Chicago archives.

38 Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, Makkah Campus, King Abdul Aziz University Comprehensive Plan (Chicago: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, 1978), 12, SOM Chicago archives; Khan, Engineering Architecture, 315–31.

39 Nehme, “Saudi Development Plans,” 642; Looney, “The Evolution and Evaluation of Saudi Arabian Economic Planning,” 11; Safran, Saudi Arabia, 228.

40 Urban Design in the Middle East: A Primer for Development (Chicago: Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill, 1978), 5. Gwendolyn Wright offers a critical assessment of this publication as an orientalist flattening of diverse cultures to superficially acculturate western architectural modernism in “Global Ambition and Local Knowledge,” 236.

41 Omar Zein, “The Middle-Eastern Cold War: The Religious Struggle Between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Republic of Iran” (MA thesis, American University in Cairo, 2015), 80, 85–89.

42 Luthi, “Pan-Islamism,” 320.

43 Luthi, Cold Wars, 320; Sheikh, “Postmodern Pan-Islamism?” 46–47, 51; William Ochsenwald, “Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Revival,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 13, no. 3 (August 1981): 272–79; James Piscatori, “The Role of Islam in Saudi Arabia’s Political Development,” in Islam and Development: Religion and Sociopolitical Change, ed. J.L Esposito (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1980), 123–38.

44 The forceful annexation of Palestinian land by Israel and the aftermaths thereof brought together leaders of Arab and Islamic political movements around the question of appropriate response to Israel’s actions and the need to support displaced populations in a manner that realigned the power of participating groups. Particularly, the Arab League associated with the Pan-Arab movement was undermined, leaving space for the strengthening of the alternative transnational solidarity framework offered by Pan-Islamism. See Luthi, “Cold Wars,” 322–3; Jacob M. Landou, The Politics of Pan-Islam: Ideology and Organization (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), 248–49; Abdullah M. Sindi, “King Faisal and Pan-Islamism,” King Faisal and the Modernization of Saudi Arabia, ed. Willard A. Beling (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1980), 190–91.

45 Charter of the Islamic Conference, Djidda, March 4, 1972, United Nations Treaty Series 914, no. 13039, 113; Sheikh, “Postmodern Pan-Islamism?” 48; Sheikh, The New Politics of Islam, 2.

46 Udo Kulturmann, Contemporary Architecture in the Arab States: Renaissance of a Region (New York: McGraw Hill, 1999), 128.

47 John Lawton, “A Terminal in a Tent,” ARAMCO World (July–August 1981), 9–10.

48 Lawton, “Terminal in a Tent,” 9–10; Khan, Engineering Architecture, 289.

49 Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Ministry of Planning, The Second Development Plan 1975–1980 (Riyadh: Ministry of Planning, 1980), 530.

50 Lawton, “Terminal in a Tent,” 14; Khan, Engineering Architecture, 300; “Invitation to the Haj,” Progressive Architecture (February, 1982): 116–22; Matthew Allen, “The Genius of Bureaucracy: SOM’s Hajj Terminal and Geiger Berger Associates’ Form-Finding Software,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 80, no. 4 (December 2021), 422–24.

51 Head of International Airport Projects, Ministry of Defense and Aviation, Major General Sa’id Yusuf Amin, quoted in: Richard Hobson, “The Riyadh Gateway,” ARAMCO World (January–February 1984), 6.

52 Kultermann, Contemporary Architecture in the Arab States, 160; Lawton, “Terminal in a Tent,” 18; Larry Paul Fuller, “Building the Kingdom: Recent Architecture of Saudi Arabia,” Texas Architect (January–February 1985), 60; “Tent Structures: Are They Architecture?” Architectural Record (May 1980), 130.

53 Fouad, Saudi Arabia, 148.

54 Nehme, “Saudi Development Plans,” 641; Looney, “The Evolution of Saudi Arabian Economic Planning,” 7.

55 Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Ministry of Information, Faisal Speaks: Book XII (Jeddah: Ministry of Information, 1975), 18.

56 Ministry of Information, Faisal Speaks, 38.

57 Sindi “King Faisal and Pan-Islamism,” 196; Mahmoud A. El-Gamal, “’Islamic Finance’ after State-Sponsored Capitalist-Islamism,” working paper, James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, Rice University, 2017, 9.

58 Ismail Serageldin, ed., Space for Freedom: The Search for Architectural Excellence in Muslim Societies (London: Butterworth Architecture, 1969), 66; Katharine A.R. Bartsch, “Re-Thinking Islamic Architecture: A Critique of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture through the Paradigm of Encounter” (PhD diss., University of Adelaide, 2005), 110.

59 King Fahd Award, The King Fahd Award for Design and Research in Islamic Architecture 1985–1986 (Jeddah: International Commission for the Preservation of Islamic Cultural Heritage, 1986); Bartsch, “Re-Thinking Islamic Architecture,” 27–28.

60 Nehme, “Saudi Development Plans,” 639; John Putnam, “The Arab World, Inc.,” National Geographic 148, no. 4 (October 1975), 519.

61 Chung In Moon, “Korean Contractors in Saudi Arabia: Their Rise and Fall,” Middle East Journal 40, no. 4 (Autumn 1986): 614–33.

62 In East Asian countries particularly, the growth of large construction conglomerates through participation in overseas commissions such as those in Saudi Arabia was identified as a driving factor of national economic growth manifested in large scale internal building booms in which western firms were in turn commissioned. Relatedly, Saudi nationals enriched through the government’s construction program became investors in US architecture firms and financiers of projects in East Asia and Western Europe, frequently supporting the hiring US firms. Works built in this context included a hotel complex by CRS, 63 Square in Seoul by SOM, and proposals for office developments in Kuala Lumpur and Saigon among many by other firms such as KPF which more aggressively pursued overseas commissions in Japan and Eastern Europe.

Jong Park, “The East Asian Model of Economic Development and Developing Countries,” Journal of Developing Societies 18, no.4 (2002), 331, 337–38, 340; Guido Starosta, “Revisiting the New International Division of Labour Thesis,” The New International Division of Labour: Global Transformation and Uneven Development, ed. Greig Charnock and Guido Starosta (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), 84, 90-91; William Mehlman, “Pharaon’s 20 Percent Stock Buy Seen Opening New Vistas for CRS,” Insider’s Chronicle, January 1, 1979; Joel Warren Barna, “Export Architecture,” Texas Architect, November-December 1990, 45; Suzanne Stephens, “SOM at Midlife,” Progressive Architecture (May 1991): 138–39; Andrea Oppenheimer Dean, “European Forecast,” Architecture (September 1990), 63.

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Aaron Tobey

Aaron Tobey is a PhD Candidate at the Yale School of Architecture and a Critic at the Rhode Island School of Design. His dissertation, “Drawing Management: Corporate Organization, International Practice, and the Making of Computer Aided Design,” develops a history of contemporary architectural production tools by examining how concepts from the field of organisational management and the agendas of a range of global actors were brought together in the work of large US architecture firms between 1965 and 1995.