Architecture

Video reveals progress of 170-km-long skyscraper through Saudi desert

Video reveals progress of 170-km-long skyscraper through Saudi desert
Once fully complete, the Line will take the form of a mirrored rectangular building stretching 170 km (105 miles) long in the Saudi Arabian desert
Once fully complete, the Line will take the form of a mirrored rectangular building stretching 170 km (105 miles) long in the Saudi Arabian desert
View 6 Images
Once fully complete, the Line will take the form of a mirrored rectangular building stretching 170 km (105 miles) long in the Saudi Arabian desert
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Once fully complete, the Line will take the form of a mirrored rectangular building stretching 170 km (105 miles) long in the Saudi Arabian desert
Millions of cubic meters of soil and water are being moved on the Line build site each week
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Millions of cubic meters of soil and water are being moved on the Line build site each week
There are expected to be around 6,000 workers on the Line site
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There are expected to be around 6,000 workers on the Line site
The Line will be home to an estimated 9 million people once complete, which is around the same as the population of New York City
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The Line will be home to an estimated 9 million people once complete, which is around the same as the population of New York City
Work is currently being carried out on the Line 24/7
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Work is currently being carried out on the Line 24/7
The Line is located in northwest Saudi Arabia, near the Red Sea
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The Line is located in northwest Saudi Arabia, near the Red Sea
View gallery - 6 images

The Pyramids of Giza, the Great Wall of China, and now the Line. It sounds hyperbolic but that's the sort of scale and ambition that the creators of Saudi Arabia's city sized skyscraper are aiming for and, despite our initial skepticism that it would actually be realized, work is indeed progressing.

To quickly recap, the Line is a massive mirrored structure that is expected to house a city of around 9 million, which is a population roughly equivalent to that of New York City.

As well as measuring 170 km (105 miles) in length, it'll have a height of 500 m (1,640 ft) and a width of just 200 m (656 ft). Obviously there are huge practical hurdles to be tackled, not to mention alleged human rights violations and ecological issues, but Saudi Crown Prince and de facto ruler Mohammed bin Salman has expressed his desire to see it built.

Work is now well underway and a new video provided by Neom shows the world's largest earthworks stretching across the desert into the distance, with excavators and lines of trucks busy preparing the necessary foundations for the building. The scale is incredible and work continues 24/7 to move around millions of cubic meters of soil and water each week.

THE LINE in Progress - February 2024

The Line is the most notable part of the upcoming Neom giga-project in Saudi Arabia but there have been an incredible number of other projects underway in the country too as it attempts to transition from a primarily oil-based economy to that of a tourist destination, including a cuboid skyscraper large enough to hold 20 Empire State Buildings, a pair of spectacular skyscrapers, and a cliff-hanging arena.

The first phase of The Line project is expected to be completed in 2030 but no doubt there will still be a lot of work left to do beyond that point.

Source: Neom

View gallery - 6 images
24 comments
24 comments
Rick O
I hope they've gotten really good at building foundations in sand filled with saltwater, that can hold tons of building above it. Wasn't there another article stating these projects are already running low on cash? That leads to corners being cut. I predict a huge mess upcoming, and I hope the residents and guests survive it.
ClauS
It is only my opinion and politics, economics, ecology, you name it aside, we are longtime overdue for such a project. Some of us grow up seeing movies with places that never came to fruition, for better or for worse, places like Blade Runner, Judge Dredd, etc. What we were offered was some modernist trash like Centre Pompidou, etc. I want to see how this will eventually turn up, remain true to the concept, or, like in automotive industry, castrated to the point that one will have a hard time trying to see any trace of the original.
Arandor
Slogan: "When you have billions of dollars but live in a desert. The Line."
jerryd
Well this will go bankrupt fast. Had they done something more like 200' high, maybe. And why is there a common height, width? It should only need to be in a line for transport, other benefits. And just where will they get, control that many people to fill it, jobs for, pay them?
And just how will they cool this thing as every sqm is 1kw plus of heat from the sun x many hrs/day? They'd really do better building more than half underground. In about 5 yrs the bottom will fall out of the oil, NG markets and the Saudis, Putin, Iran, others will be broke as RE which now cost 50-80% less than FF power and EVs can cost the same as ICEs as battery prices are now so low, just won't be long before FFs are gone in 20 yrs.
Username
Had it been a giant circle, the travel time would have been cut in half.
Daishi
This will be challenging but I am not ready to call it impossible. Most of Dubai didn't exist even 15 or 20 years ago. Now it is a big tourist destination and a playground for some of the richest people in the world.
Global
Looks more like a crooked ditch, will see what mother nature has to say about the line in the sand. Energy & sustainability has not been explained, just a utopian pipe dream, when the wells run dry, this will die...
grey
@Rick O no they're not running out of cash. what? it's funded by the Royals. they have like literally trillions of dollars. they are pretty hell bent on building at least a couple of these mega projects. they're basically trying to hedge their bets against the fact that oil is going to be phased out and there's nothing they can do about it, their entire country and all of their wealth is reliant on oil and the government just paying for everyone's employment that lives there.

there are investing in tons of companies. they're doing these big projects to turn the internal economy in the future into something else basically by trying to become like a multicultural hub.

but there's two families, the sauds, whom the country is named after, and the wahhabs, who were also around when the country was formed the third time, and they control the religious stuff of the country. monarchy is much much much more powerful than them. and has been kind of attempting to prepare them to be like western, because the royal family themselves are very western. but the people aren't necessarily and the region is not necessarily friendly towards that, but they're trying it anyway because they're hoping that people from Europe basically and the US will move to these gigantic cities to be like tech and trade hubs basically.
Norm_in_Ngunnawal_country
I keep wondering "Who will live and work there?"
Will it be so expensive that it just gathers dust?

Maybe it will it become a tourist theme park that a few people go to once.

Are there really 9 million rich people who want to move there? Why would people move there?
ash
whoever came up with this idea may well have had a few too many lines already
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