In his quest to diversify the economy and rid himself of oil, the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arab ordered to build mirror line (mirror line), And building Linear 170 km long in the north west of the country, Where five million people can live and it will be covered with glass.
as revealed wall street journal, Construction will include the distribution of a billion dollars According to official propaganda, it will be designed by the Saudi government and “around people rather than cars”. The project should rival that of the Egyptian pyramids, ordered the prince.
According to the information, once this “linear city” is finished, it can be done in 20 minutes with a . will be covered by high speed train Who will pass under the buildings a soccer stadium over 300 meters high; and it includes vertical garden and farm So that its residents can sow, cultivate and harvest seasonal food throughout the year. Finally, it also makes a plan yacht harbor,
a pharaonic city
“Line of Mirrors” was designed by the American studio Morphosis Architects, Whose founder – Thom Mayne – holds the Pritzker Architecture Prize. and it will be manufactured by phase, With 790 meters tall structures that will be connected.
This initiative includes the creation of a “Horizontal skyscraper” and reflecting 487 meters high -Taller than the Empire State Building-Divided into two parallel blocks that will be connected via footbridges, roads and a train track Project official page,
There will be a distance of 200 meters between the two blocks, and in total, the entire project will cover an area of ​​34 square kilometres, which can house nine million people. construction will be on a Coastal, desert and mountainous areas; will be involved in Gulf of Aqaba with the desert, and according to plans, a airplaneA suburb around an airport that would connect the new city to the rest of the world.
financial and environmental challenges
offer is required foreign investment with a forecast of create 380 thousand jobs by 2030, The deadline for its dismantling was imposed by Prince Mohammed. However an evaluation – from January 2021 – indicated that the project could take longer: about 50 years.,
However, the truth is thatSaudi prince’s Pharaonic project may not have excited investorsFor other reasons, Western countries and companies avoid doing business with the state, and in particular with the prince, the de facto ruler, because of questions about human rights following the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.
In any case, travel Joe Biden Last week in the kingdom, her meeting – and photo – with Prince Mohammed had a high profile that may serve get out of that western isolation and will pave the way for investment in the state.
Overall, the construction of this urban infrastructure will not be an easy task for engineers, planners and workers. The first challenge before this project is the completion deadline that was imposed through the prince’s national transformation plan, In addition, other problems must be solved, such as managing the migration of millions of birds through the corridors that will cross the structure.
Meanwhile, NEOM staff raised the potential resistance of people to live in a building of these characteristics after the pandemic, while questioning whether the structure could have a larger size. Changes in the dynamics of groundwater flow in desert wadis You Restrict the movement of birds and other animals,
