Engineering Economies of Identity: Saudi Planning, Pan-Islamism, and Transnational Architectural Production

Abstract

Between the early 1960s and the 1980s, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia commissioned a series of large-scale architectural projects as part of an ambitious building programme drawing on both local and foreign sets of resources and expertise. Building from a reading of planning documents and commentaries produced by the government of the Kingdom alongside archival material from several US architecture firms, this article resituates these architectural projects as part of two of the government’s larger political agendas: economic development planning and Pan-Islamic solidarity. By doing so, the article reveals the multifaceted character of these projects and the complex role of architecture in the Saudi government’s nation building activities. It further shows how these architectural projects became a means of engineering internal and international political economies in a manner that helped establish and shape larger long-lasting patterns of transnational architectural production.