Regionalism indicators and assessment approach of recent trends in Saudi Arabia’s architecture: The Salmaniah architectural style and the King Salman Charter initiatives as a case study

Abstract

This study explores recent regionalism trends in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The research positions the argument within a broader context of critical regionalism concepts and theories. It draws insights from the Saudi case on how regionalism approaches holistic yet applicable criteria. The literature review discusses the broader perspectives of critical regionalism and the history of regionalism progress in Saudi Arabia. The review positions the research's framework on how the global and local nexus are compared. A contribution of research methodology is provided on how to study regionalism architecture in societies and to provide regionalism indicators to compare with and conduct an assessment. This research employed a methodological approach using key expert interviews and surveys (building assessments and evaluations) applied to three cases that represent the six core values of the King Salman Charter. The study found that although the King Salman Charter for Architecture and Urbanism demonstrates six core values for contemporary, traditional architecture in Saudi Arabia, it is not at the level of detail of providing detailed implementation criteria. Rather than responding to a global regionalism trend or deriving core values from a selective but not exhaustive list, the Charter should craft its principles and methodological criteria based on studying Saudi Arabia’s historic, traditional settlements, and the Kingdom’s extant built heritage.