On the Red Sea, Saudi Arabia is currently building a city for 9 million inhabitants with international investors, which consists of just a single building: “The Line”, 500 meters high, 200 meters wide and 170 kilometers long. This roughly corresponds to the distance from Cologne to Frankfurt. Around a fifth of these have already been completed, the Saudis announced in February. In addition, they are planning other model cities, summarized under the title “Neom”. And in the capital Riyadh, a 400 by 400 meter hollow cube called Mukaab is to be built, which will house a tower inside.
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Gregor Honsel has been a TR editor since 2006. He believes that many complex problems have simple, easy-to-understand, but wrong solutions.
Such efforts are not new: totalitarian regimes have always been attracted to gigantism. The Nazis, for example, built the longest building complex in the world on Rügen in the 1930s – the four and a half kilometer long holiday home Prora. For Berlin, Adolf Hitler and his court architect Albert Speer even fantasized about a dome more than 300 meters high. It could easily have spanned what is currently the tallest office building in the EU, the Commerzbank Tower in Frankfurt. Rain clouds would probably even have formed under their roof. Saudi Arabia is now making it several sizes bigger.
Better a sensible concept than high-tech
Rarely have builders let their feasibility mania unbridled as openly as in Saudi Arabia. The length of The Line alone is the greatest possible nonsense in terms of urban planning. The German-language project website states: “Residents have access to all facilities within a five-minute walk, in addition to the high-speed train – with a direct connection within 20 minutes.” But you could save yourself this high-tech train if you were to make the city more compact from the start. Technology solves a problem here that you wouldn’t even have with a more sensible conception.
The pinnacle of technical hubris: the Saudis want to build a winter sports resort called Trojena in a notoriously dry mountain region. In 2029, the Asian Winter Games are to be held here. The city is based on the “principles of ecotourism” and underlines “our efforts to preserve nature and improve the quality of life in the community,” says the German-language website. What nonsense. If you really care about nature, just leave it alone. But the Saudis seem to believe that throwing enough money at it can solve any problem.
The promises that The Line will be supplied with 100 percent renewable energy are similarly transparent. Even if the makers should manage to set up the solar parks required for air conditioning and seawater desalination with the area of a medium-sized European country (because they would be necessary for this in terms of figures): the project will still be a huge waste of resources, just because of all the CO2-intensive concrete. “The idea of an all-round ecological neo-Babylon is screwed up here in practically every aspect,” writes the Süddeutsche Zeitung, describing the whole thing as the “most absurd construction project in the world“.
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Image 1 of 7 In the area of ”The Line” marked in yellow, numerous excavators can be seen (red dots) transporting earth to the areas marked in purple. Blue dots representing construction vehicles can be seen throughout the builder base. Solar cell fields are shaded green.
(Image: SOAR)
The promises of the advertising campaign sound just as absurd. “The Line is a civilizational revolution that puts people first and offers an unprecedented urban living experience while preserving the surrounding nature,” says the website, which is primarily courting investors. “It sets new standards in urban development and shows what the cities of the future should look like.” And Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Crown Prince and Chairman of the Board of Neom Company, is quoted as saying: “The Line will address the challenges humanity is facing in urban life today and shine a light on alternative ways of living. We cannot ignore the living and environmental crises facing the cities of our world and Neom is at the forefront in providing new and creative solutions.”
Do these “alternative lifestyles” also apply to people who have different views than the Saudi royal family? Let us surprise. Incidentally, Mohammed bin Salman is precisely the man most likely responsible for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Vision of a building as a living machine
The promise does not apply to the local population. Part of the site was inhabited by the Huwaitat people who were displaced to make way for The Line. One person who protested their eviction was reportedly shot dead by Saudi security forces, and three others were recently sentenced to death.
Not only the sheer dimension of The Line has fascist traits. The vision of a building as a living machine that takes care of residents from front to back also has similar ideological roots – egalitarianism and control. The Line is not only a demonstration of power, but also a means of exercising power. All conceivable data should be collected, including from smartphones, apartments and facial recognition cameras. According to the website, this data should “improve life through personalized, predictive and autonomous services” and “adapt them to the needs of each user”. What sounds like a promise can also be read as a threat: the same data can also be used excellently to adapt user behavior to the needs of the authorities.
(hrm)
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