Conversation

Update on "The Line," or NEOM, aka the wacked-out megacity horizontal skyscraper project in the Saudi desert:

-20,000 indigenous people displaced
-21,000 workers dead
-100,000 more workers missing
-16 hour workdays and atrocious conditions for workers
-racist comments about workers by senior executives
-incoming president of the Royal Institute of British Architects, Chris Williams, is directly involved in it
-so are multiple other high-profile architecture firms, including Zaha Hadid, who, when told about human rights abuses committed during the construction of her design for the Qatar World Cup, said, “I’m not taking it lightly but I think it’s for the government to look to take care of. It’s not my duty as an architect to look at it.”
-Superstudio, a radical group of Italian architects, proposed a similar "line in the city" idea back in the 1970s--as a critique of capitalism

https://www.thenation.com/article/society/neom-deaths-saudi-the-line/

https://www.archpaper.com/2024/10/documentary-reveals-21000-workers-killed-saudi-vision-2030-neom/

https://thebaffler.com/latest/line-in-the-sand-wagner

https://www.dezeen.com/2024/08/19/neom-riba-president-saudi-arabia/

#Architecture