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A zine produced by members of ARCH 5602, Kean University School of Public Architecture
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A zine produced by members of ARCH 5602, Kean University School of Public Architecture
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Vol. 1
Letter from the Editor -
Davis Richardson
Reclaiming 432 Park Ave - Kamila Diaz Calderon
Ultrathin Worlds -
Anyi Liranzo-Payamps
Finance Over Function -
Jared Britton
The Housing Shepherd -
Kacper Kowal
Livestream Dystopia -
Jake Haenggi
VR Architecture -
Ryan Barbour
Metaverse Architecture -
Danny Gavino
From Fi-Fi to De-Fi -
Scott Gleason
Realistic or Reality? -
Stephan Argent
Dubaifying Saudi Arabia-
Rasha Labibidi
NEOM’s Sustainability Mirage - Andrew Lazarte
Living in the Model -
Bryan Tome
Planting the Illusion -
Lauren Taravella
Critical Regionalism -
Nolan Aucone
About
Order
CGZ-VOLNO1-ARCH5602-FA2025-E10
Dubaifying Saudi Arabia: From Islamic Modesty to Global Spectacle in Architectural Identity
Dubaifying Saudi Arabia: From Islamic Modesty to Global Spectacle in Architectural Identity
Rasha Labibidi
At dawn in old Riyadh, silence once settled between thick earthen walls. Homes turned inward toward shaded courtyards, protecting privacy and endorsing an Islamic ethic of modesty that shaped every gesture of the built environment. Today, that same sun rises over cantilevered towers and megastructures being built in futuristic desert cities. Saudi Arabia is rewriting its architectural identity in real time—shifting from centuries of restrained spatial traditions to a global image crafted through spectacle, scale, and media-quenching mega-projects. This transformation—what could be called the “Dubaification” of the kingdom—raises a critical question: what happens when the branding of a nation’s architecture becomes a tool to erase culture?
Before Saudi Arabia’s recent turn towards architectural spectacle, understanding its built environment required immersion. One had to inhabit the rhythms of everyday desert life, navigate through the social codes of privacy, and read how climate, faith, and culture subtly shaped space. Architecture was not instantly legible—it revealed itself slowly, through lived experience, as more than simply clay structures. It was not meant to impress at a glance, but the architecture was deeply rooted in climate, societal needs, and vernacular materials. Buildings in Mekkah, Medina, and Jeddah used silt clay, palm wood, and coral stone with elements that responded to heat and privacy, such as the wooden lattice windows.1
Saudi Arabia’s identity today appears ready-made and downloadable, an image that leans more closely to Pinterest-friendly panoramas rather than a place of spatial intimacy.
NEOM, the keystone project under Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 initiative, is the most prominent example of the kingdom’s transformation. The $500 billion megaproject aims to “diversify” the kingdom’s economy
by integrating technology, business, and tourism within a city powered entirely by renewable energy. Yet its vision echoes that of Dubai—a society that rebranded itself as a global hub of modernity and capitalism while being built on systems of exploitation, inequality, and erasure.3 The project creates a dispute between Islamic modesty and the pursuit of global architectural recognition. Projects such as The Line, the centerpiece of NEOM, claim to bring technological, economic, and sustainable advancement, but at the risk of human integrity, where cultural identity disappears in the sea of fake diversity. What does this mean for Saudi Arabia’s thousand-year history of Islamic principles?
Such projects raise questions on whether the recent architectural spectacle can coexist with Islamic principles of modesty, as culture itself becomes reconstituted through capital and branding. In this shift, modesty that was once embodied as a behavioral and social ethic becomes a curated visual identity. It is therefore often rendered as a consumable identity. Rather than privacy being enforced by ethical norms, NEOM mimics the Dubai model and transforms modesty as an aesthetic. Prior to its rapid modernization, Dubai was a small port and trading settlement shaped by climate and communal life. From the late twentieth century onward, the establishment of special economic zones, such as the Jebel Ali Free Zone, combined with accelerated population growth and global capital inflows, reoriented the city toward branding and visibility.4 Old spatial boundaries, such as those found in historic Jeddah, were, in comparison, invisible but respected.
Stefan Maneval, a professor and PhD-holder of Islamic Studies from Freie University of Berlin, reinforces this point in his book New Islamic Urbanism: The Architecture of Public and Private Space in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. He describes how “the boundaries between public and private [in mid-twentieth-century Jeddah] were well defined and, as far as the sources suggest, strictly respected.” In this context, private space was integrated into buildings through a sense of shared ethics rather than physical walls alone. The privacy boundaries in early to mid-twentieth-century Jeddah “were not fixed and cannot be localized easily,” but relied heavily on Islamic ethics.5
A traditional Hejazi home in Jeddah could house open courtyards and wooden lattice balconies that allowed privacy to be negotiated socially and architecturally rather than through sealed barriers. Even in semi-shared thresholds, such as shared alleyways and dihlīz entrances, circulation relied on invisible codes. As such, men avoided certain zones if women were present, and guests followed social rules of movement. Maneval points out that an opportunity to expand public, social, and even private gatherings for economic gain arises when “what appears to be a means to protect the private sphere can at the same time enable the constitution of publics.”6
A late Ottoman merchant courtyard house in Jeddah similarly organized domestic life through layered spatial sequences rather than fixed separations. Movement from the street through the dihlīz into the courtyard and reception rooms allowed inhabitants to regulate encounters gradually, relying on shared social understanding instead of overt visual enclosure. Rawāshīn projecting over the street enabled controlled observation and participation in public life without direct exposure, reinforcing privacy as a practiced condition. As Maneval demonstrates, such domestic architectures functioned not only as protective interiors but as frameworks that supported social exchange, hospitality, and economic activity, revealing how private space could simultaneously sustain public and semi-public life.7
In comparison to these traditional homes, Gulf megaprojects convert modesty from a community value to a marketable image. The rapid developments of NEOM are enforced through thick walls, surveillance, and controlled corridors. Mixed-use towers of mirrored modern glass and screens mimic global standards of technological modernity. While modern materials do not directly violate ethical norms of privacy, they nonetheless reshape its meaning. Any space lacking such walls is socially interpreted as exposed, and this new architectural standard pushes the public to conform to this built definition of modesty. Visibility is therefore marketed as luxury, and transparency turns into status, losing the essence of Islamic teachings of humility that once guided both its architecture and lived behavior. In pursuing Western models of modernism, these projects have touted a veneer of those same values of honesty, functionalism, and transparency as evidence of an advanced culture—but one which neglected traditional norms and, by extension, the distinct values of the Orient preserved for millennia.
As part of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 initiative, The Line’s continuous mirrored glass facade introduces a complex and contradictory reading of modesty. At first glance, its reflective surface appears to minimize visual intrusion by blending into the desert landscape, suggesting an architectural gesture of restraint. While reflection may suggest disappearance within the landscape, the reality of the project’s scale, cost, and environmental impact renders such gestures hollow. Rather than embodying humility, the mirrored facade operates as a performative disguise—using concealment to legitimize excess. In this way, modesty is not upheld but transformed into an aesthetic strategy, emptied of its ethical and spiritual foundations.
The Holy Quran warns against forms of human arrogance—behavioral, social, and material—in which God commands the people: “Do not walk upon the earth exultantly; indeed, you will never tear the earth apart nor reach the mountains in height.”10 The classical tafsir (explanation) of Ibn Kathir, Al-Tabari, Al-Qurtubi, explains that the verse opposes self-exaltation, excessive pride in one’s physical stature, possessions, or constructions. The phrase “nor reach the mountains in height” refers to attempting to assert power through height or elevation in both a metaphorical and literal sense. The verse could critique skyscraper culture as a form of arrogance; an attitude built into the silhouettes of the megaprojects of Saudi Arabia. As Saudi Arabia holds the heart of the Islamic Ummah in Mecca and Medina, NEOM’s extravagance feels particularly incongruous.
Saudi Arabia stands today at a crossroads between architectural inheritance and innovation. Whatever the reasons for the kingdom’s metamorphosis—Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s bid to appeal to foreign investors and Western allies, a gradual erosion of Islamic values, or an attempt to refine its tarnished image—this rapidly changing transformation redefines shared and spatial ethics that once shaped everyday life. Contemporary projects promise technological and economic advancements, but the challenge is to ensure that such large-scale architectural ambitions do not erase ethical grounding. The future of Saudi urbanism is heading towards a change in identity, risking a repetition of Dubai’s trajectory in which home is replaced with global attraction.
- The National. “Saudi Architecture Characters Map Launched by Mohammed bin Salman.” The National, March 17, 2025. https://www.thenationalnews.com/arts-culture/2025/03/17/saudi-architecture-characters-map-mohammed-bin-salman/.
- Maneval, Stefan. New Islamic Urbanism: The Architecture of Public and Private Space in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. London: UCL Press, 2019. https://doi.org/10.14324/111.9781787356429.
- Roche, Daniel Jonas. “Documentary Reveals 21,000 Workers Killed on Saudi Vision 2030 Megaprojects, Including NEOM.” The Architect’s Newspaper, October 2024. https://www.archpaper.com/2024/10/documentary-reveals-21000-workers-killed-saudi-vision-2030-neom/.
- Eye of Riyadh. “The Total Value of Land Transactions in Dubai Surged 403.6%, Driven by a Forward-Looking Strategy and Integrated Urban Planning: JLL.” Eye of Riyadh, n.d. https://www.eyeofriyadh.com/news/details/the-total-value-of-land-transactions-in-dubai-surged-403-6-driven-by-a-forward-looking-strategy-and-integrated-urban-planning-JLL.
- Maneval, New Islamic Urbanism
- Ibid.
- Ibid., 50-56, 101-108.
- AD Middle East. “These Heritage Hotels in Al Balad, Jeddah, Are an Invitation to Step Back in Time.” AD Middle East, n.d. https://www.admiddleeast.com/story/these-heritage-hotels-in-al-balad-jeddah-are-an-invitation-to-step-back-in-time.
- Roche, “Documentary Reveals 21,000 Workers Killed”
- Surah Al-Isra’ 17:37