RIYADH: Saudi Arabia has broken ground on the Mukaab, a cube-shaped skyscraper in Riyadh that, when completed, will be the largest built structure in the world.
The building will span 400 meters on each side, providing enough volume to house up to 20 Empire State Buildings, according to Boomberg. The Mukaab is the focal point of New Murabba, a larger urban development designed to reshape Riyadh as a global destination and showcase Saudi Arabia’s ambitious Vision 2030 project to diversify the economy away from oil dependency by fostering tourism, entertainment, and urban innovation.
Other Saudi megaprojects under Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman’s Vision 2030 include The Line, a 170-kilometer linear city powered by renewable energy, as well as Oxagon, a floating industrial complex, and Trojena, a mountain destination in the futuristic NEOM region .
The Mukaab will be at the center of a 19-square-kilometer (7.3-square-mile) downtown that aims to establish Riyadh as a modern hub of tourism, business, and cultural innovation. The New Murabba development will integrate 104,000 residential units, over 9,000 hotel rooms, and nearly 2 million square meters of office and retail space.
According to Michael Dyke, chief executive officer of New Murabba Development Company, the cube structure symbolizes “the next chapter” for Riyadh, making it an “iconic symbol of Saudi ingenuity” while also creating 334,000 new jobs. “Ultimately, a capital city the size of Riyadh deserves to have a global, central icon as other capital cities do”.
Construction on the Mukaab has moved swiftly, with recent reports showing 86 percent of site excavations complete, amounting to 10 million cubic meters of earth moved. The Mukaab will use an immersive, digitally enhanced interior experience, including a dome equipped with holographic screens and virtual reality projections that can make visitors feel as though they’ve entered a different region of the world.
“You could go to bed in the Serengeti and wake up in New York City,” Dyke explained to Bloomberg, noting that the combination of high-tech visuals, scents, and sounds will create a sense of transport beyond the physical location.
The Mukaab project has stirred controversy for it’s likeness to the Kaaba in the holy city of Mecca, according to U.K.-based news website Middle East Eye.
Saudi Arabia has faced criticism recently, after an ITV documentary titled Kingdom Uncovered: Inside Saudi Arabia reported that laborers were working longer hours than legally prescribed.
The documentary alleged that workers were working over the maximum 60 hours weekly, and were forced to take a three-hour bus commute to the desert site and back on top of their shift, leaving them with around four hours to sleep.
The first phase of construction, projected to conclude by 2030, aligns with Saudi Arabia’s planned hosting of Expo 2030, a significant event that will bring together 190 countries for six months of international exhibitions.
The first phase will include around 8,000 homes, enough for 35,000 people.
The Mukaab, according to the New Murabba Development Company, is expected to add more than $50 billion to Saudi Arabia’s non-oil GDP, transforming Riyadh into a “new face” of modern Saudi Arabia.
