According to people familiar with the matter, Saudi Arabia is planning the world’s largest buildings in the mostly populated part of the country as part of an entirely new $500 billion development called NEOM .
Neom, the brainchild of Saudi Crown Prince and de facto ruler Mohammed bin Salman, aims to build twin skyscrapers nearly 500 meters (1,640 feet) tall, which stretch for dozens of miles horizontally, people said.
The skyscrapers will have a mix of residential, retail and office space running across the desert from the Red Sea coast, the people said, adding that the information is private, not identifiable. People said the plan is a change from the concept announced last year, involving a string of developments involving underground hyper-speed rail into one long continuous structure.
Neom’s current and former employees said the designers had been instructed to work on a half-mile-long prototype. If it goes ahead in its entirety, each structure will be larger than the current largest buildings in the world, most of which are factories or malls rather than residential communities.
Announced in 2017, Neom Prince Mohammed plans to transform a remote region of the country into a high-tech semi-autonomous state that re-imagines urban living. It is part of their plans to attract foreign investment and help the Saudi economy move away from its dependence on oil sales. The line, which will form the backbone of Neom, known as the car-free linear city, could cost up to $200 billion to build, the prince said last year, though it will be built on huge horizontal buildings. was prior to the change in plan to include
Neom’s chief executive officer, Nadmi Al-Nasr, declined to comment on the specifics of the plan in an interview, saying “the line is an out-of-the-box idea.” “What we offer when we are ready will be very well received, and will be seen as revolutionary.”
To plan The Line, Neom worked with a California-based architecture firm called Morphosis, according to current and former employees of the Saudi project. Morphosis — founded by Thom Mayne, once called the “bad boy” of American architecture — did not respond to requests for comment.
Al-Nasr said the buildings will be “different heights as you go”, adapting to the landscape, their final shape determined by engineering considerations and the terrain.
The world’s tallest building in the Middle East is already Dubai’s Burj Khalifa. Long before the rise of Prince Mohammed, Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal announced plans to build the world’s tallest building near Jeddah. The skyscraper remains only partially completed.
Some of Saudi Arabia’s financial loss from high oil prices is likely to eventually lead to the creation of Neom. Government officials have said a beneficiary of the surplus money could be the powerful Public Investment Fund, headed by Prince Mohammed and owned by Neom.
Yet funding has not been a challenge for Neom so far. Instead, questions have been raised about the viability of the project as several other massive developments intended to promote economic diversification in the past have failed. The PIF, as the Money Fund is known, is trying to transform a mostly defunct office cluster in northern Riyadh, which cost billions to build and was commissioned under the previous ruler, into a financial center.
Those involved in the project said the line would be constructed in phases based on demand, hoping to avoid a similar fate.
“When people talk about The Line, they see a futuristic Hyperloop, a Star Wars type of entity,” said Ali Shihabi, a member of Neom’s advisory board. A well thought-out sustainable modern city that will accommodate everyone from workers to billionaires and that will be built in phases, so it will follow demand.”