NEOM, dubbed the largest investment in the world, and The Line, nicknamed the city of the future, are being built in the Saudi desert for a billion dollars. Excavation work is well underway, imagination is running high, but many are wondering what the project means.
It is as if the Babylon of the future is revealed to the viewer in a utopian science fiction film. Based on the video clips (shown below), this is what The Line looks like, identified as a city of the future that cuts straight across the desert, with its hanging gardens, balconies, elevated football fields and stunning walkways. Like – this is the line. The futuristic city being built in the northwestern part of Saudi Arabia actually resembles a line, or planned skyscraper, at least 170 kilometers long. But its height of 500 meters is also impressive, as it rises much higher than the Empire State Building in New York. The entire massive structure is actually divided into two parallel walls and covered with glass on the outside, with a width of 200 metres.
Even today, many do not believe that the linear city will ever be built, as the entire investment is shrouded in secrecy. Perhaps to calm skeptics, six architectural studios involved in developing The Line reported on the concept of The Line in a 45-minute video last year, including US firm Morphosis Architects, which is considered the winner of the original idea, and one of whose founders is a Pritzker Prize winner. Tom Mayne. According to the latest information, drilling work on an unprecedented scale is taking place at full speed. 2,000 trucks and 260 hooks work 24 hours a day moving 2 million cubic meters of earth weekly as part of the foundation. The work is being carried out by the London-based civil engineering company Keller Group, which has a contract with the Saudis until 2022. Several thousand people are working at the construction site, and a separate camp has been set up for workers – as if the construction of the Great Egyptian Pyramid had begun to come to life, only… With modern tools, instead of a gable, the great work is an elongated rectangle.
